Page 39 of A Virgin for the Rakish Duke (Romancing a Rake #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

J eremy watched his son with his nurse. The child made inarticulate but happy noises as the young woman smiled at him. He was in his crib and she, rocking it, gazing down at him with wonder and devotion. It was touching, and Jeremy wished he could feel the same emotions when he looked at the babe.

Can he sense that my smile is skin deep only? That I cannot summon any fatherly love or parental instinct. Have I spent so long treating love as an afterthought, a poor cousin to lust, that I have lost the capacity for it?

The nurse had the same dark eyes as Edward, and they seemed to be locked together, the infant following her every move as though she were his goddess.

He left the nursery without disturbing them, walking through the house to the room he had given over to art.

Harriet, you would be proud, though I doubt you have thought of me much in the last two weeks. Ralph will have you occupied with your marriage to your dashing French ambassador's son.

The room was on the highest floor of Penhaligon with tall windows in one wall and one in the ceiling. The floor was bare wood, and the walls were naked plaster. The room was decorated with nothing but natural light during the day and flickering shadows from the large fireplace at night.

An easel stood in the center of the room, and papers were scattered across the floor at random. Jeremy stopped as he stepped into the room. Too late he realized that the door was unlocked. It was his habit to keep it locked.

Florence was crouched, picking up the scattered paper, stacking them neatly in her hand, examining each one.

“We agreed that you would not be permitted in here,” Jeremy said, sternly.

Florence peeked at him over her shoulder, and he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed.

“I thought I could recreate our time together. When you loved me, or so I thought,” she said, brokenly.

“I did,” Jeremy affirmed.

She held up the papers.

“But no longer.”

“It is not required. Edward is what connects us. He is my duty.”

“I wanted more than that,” Florence muttered.

“You cannot have it,” Jeremy said, plainly.

“And I can see why. I know why you keep this room locked. I found another key in Atkins' rooms. I wanted to know what draws you here again and again. I could never persuade you to take up art again. I tried, but you refused. How did she do it?”

Every piece of paper she held, every piece on the floor and the canvases stacked around the room were all of the same subject.

Harriet.

Jeremy had tried to paint other things. To draw other things. He could not. Any other portrait transformed into her. Every other subject became incorporated into a picture of her.

“It does not matter. She is gone,” he pressed.

Florence leafed through the pages, smiling sadly.

“I did not realize how much you loved her, this woman who replaced me. I thought she would be just another flip-skirt, easily forgotten...”

Jeremy felt a stab of overwhelming anger and crossed the room in quick strides, snatching the paper from her. One picture was caught between them, tearing across Harriet's face.

“Get out of here! Go!” Jeremy roared. “She has my heart and always will. I will marry you out of duty, but we will live separate lives. Do you understand?”

Florence took a hurried step back, nodding.

“I do. It is not what I wanted. Not for either of us. I am sorry.”

Tears were filling her eyes, her face creasing with grief. Jeremy's lips curled.

“What we wanted is not what we are fated to get. We take the cards we are dealt. Sometimes it will be a winning hand. Sometimes not. This is not, but there is no use in complaining. I will do my duty.”

“Even if you are miserable for the rest of your days?”

“Happiness is a luxury.”

“It shouldn't be...” Florence put her face into her hands, “...I cannot do it. Please do not be angry. I...”

Jeremy looked at her with a wooden expression. He was not curious. There was nothing to inspire emotion now that Harriet was gone. Anger would color him until even that faded into an amorphous grayness.

“Edward is not your son. Nor mine. His mother is Eleanor, the maid I brought with me. He is the son of her employer, who fired her when he discovered she was with child. I knew him and took her in but did not have the means to keep all three of us. But he, the father, mentioned you. How rich he was going to be as a result of you. And I thought...”

“He has my birthmark,” Jeremy said blankly.

“No, he doesn't. It is a simple dye that will wash off his skin in a matter of weeks,” Florence said, miserably.

Paper fell from Jeremy's hands. He stared at Florence, disbelief written across his face.

“I—I was desperate, and I thought that perhaps fatherhood would improve you, make you happy even if I could not. I will tell Eleanor that the ruse is over. We will leave immediately.”

Jeremy held up a hand.

“And go where?” he asked.

“It is not your concern. I will not drag you any further into misery,” she cried.

“And I cannot simply evict two defenseless women and an infant. I swore to protect you, and I will do just that. Whom is the father?”

He already knew. Instinct told him. There was only one person who would brag as to how wealthy Jeremy was going to make him.

“The… the Baron of Linwood,” she stammered.

Jeremy stared down at Harriet's face, scattered across the floor. Anger flowed through his veins like fire. The need to go after Simon Winchester and punish him was as urgent as the need to breathe after a minute underwater. But Harriet's face quelled that fire.

“I am free of my obligation,” he whispered, “I do not have to...”

He did not finish the sentence spoken under his breath for his own ears. He ran for the door, catching hold of the doorframe and looking back at Florence with a wild grin.

“Florence, do not fret. I will not put you, Eleanor, or Edward from this house. I will protect you, and I do not blame you. But I must take my own destiny into my hands. Fate has rolled the dice against me, and I intend to beat him!”

He was in his shirtsleeves, the material stained by paint as were his hands.

He stopped long enough to pull on a pair of riding boots before haring out to the stables.

A bemused stable-boy wisely stepped aside as Jeremy tore through the stalls like a whirlwind, saddling his favorite charger.

He put the animal to a dead run, pointing it towards Oaksgrove.

The Danbury parish church was bedecked with flowers arranged artfully to form the tricolor flag of France next to the red and white of England.

Villagers thronged around the churchyard, looking excited and expectant.

When the carriage bearing Harriet and Ralph arrived outside the church, they let out a huzzah and threw rose petals.

Servants of Oaksgrove lined one side of the path into the church.

Facing them was the staff of the de Rouvroy's official residence in London.

“Smile, Harriet,” Ralph reminded her through the side of his mouth, “this is supposed to be a happy day.”

Harriet forced a smile as the door of the carriage was opened and the cheers washed over her.

The sky was a perfect blue, but to her, it couldn’t have been grayer.

The happiness of the villagers seemed false, jarring next to her own emotions.

Her thoughts went beyond the village to Penhaligon.

She thought she could look directly at it, knowing where it lay beyond the horizon as though drawn to it.

What is he doing at this moment? Is he bouncing his son on his knee? Walking with his new fiancée in the gardens? Is he painting? I hope he is happy, whatever he does and wherever he is. Please, Lord, let one of us be truly happy…

She followed her brother into the church, seeing Henri at the end of the aisle.

The service passed in a blur. She gave the appropriate responses.

Heard Henri speak with more conviction and passion than she had.

It was drawing to its inevitable conclusion.

Her imprisonment was about to begin, the door slamming shut on the freedom she had tasted but once.

“Is there anyone here present that knows of any reason why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony?” the priest asked. “If so, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

He waited, as was formality, and Harriet closed her eyes. Heard the intake of breath as the priest began to pronounce the final part of the ceremony.

“I speak!” A breathless voice bellowed from the other end of the church.

A gasp went through the gathered congregants. Harriet's eyes flipped open. Jeremy was striding towards her like a prince from her dreams. Half undressed and marked by stray paint, but with a wild light in his eyes. Ralph snarled and stepped between Jeremy and Harriet.

“Get out! I will kill you for this!” he roared.

“Step aside, old boy. I love your sister. I have been her fiancé in name only and now would be in truth,” Jeremy said.

Ralph made as if to strike Jeremy, but Henri de Rouvroy caught his arm, pushing him aside.

“No! I want to hear what this man has to say, why he interferes!” he said, chin high and tone haughty.

Jeremy turned to the man. “I interfere because I love the woman you were about to marry. My objection is based on the suspicion that she loves me, not you. That is the reason I know of why you should not be wed,” he said with utter conviction and passion.

Harriet found a smile tugging at her lips.

This is a dream. It cannot be. A child cannot be unmade, cannot be disappeared. Jeremy had an inescapable duty, and I know he would not shirk it. But he is here!

She gently moved Henri aside, standing before Jeremy.

“It is true. I love you. But love is not essential for marriage. What has become of your son?”

“I have no son. It was all a lie. And Simon Winchester is at the heart of it,” Jeremy muttered.

Harriet had never truly experienced joy until that moment.

Nor had she understood the adage of hope being the greatest of qualities.

It shone within her now, suffusing her. She laughed aloud, raising a hand to her face to cover it, feeling that such unadulterated joy must be restrained. But it would not be.

“I do not believe you,” she said, “you are a figment of my dreaming mind. I am asleep on the night before my wedding and conjuring this to soothe my misery.”

Jeremy stepped closer and kissed her. It was delicate but passionate, chaste but intimate. It conveyed the emotions that would take a novel to communicate in words, and it was the most real sensation Harriet had ever felt.

“Harriet Tisdale, will you marry me?” Jeremy asked breathlessly.

“Yes!” Harriet cried.

“No! He is the worst kind of man! A rake and a scoundrel! I will not allow it!” Ralph exclaimed.

Henri looked stunned. His dark eyes flitted from Jeremy to Harriet, widening. Then a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Something akin to realization stole across his face.

“I tell you, I will not allow it!” Ralph roared again.

“Hush, mes ami ,” Henri said, crossly. “As a Frenchman, I know what true love looks like, and in the past weeks, I have never seen it in your sister's eyes until now.”

He gazed into Harriet’s eyes, smiling gently and with no little sadness.

“This… je suis desole , he is what you want? Not me? I will not deny that I would consider it a great honor to be the man you choose.”

Harriet smiled gently. “And you will make the woman you choose a fine husband, I am sure. But, it will not be me. Je suis desole .”

He lifted his chin, spine straight. “Well said. I will not stand in the way of true love. The betrothal is over. Congratulations, ma cherie .”

He bowed to Harriet, smiling warmly. Harriet stood, beaming and holding Jeremy's hands. She looked to her brother, who was still glaring at Jeremy.

“Ralph, there is much that we need to explain to you. But what you need to know at this moment is that I love him as I will love no other. He is not the man you think he is.”

“I know precisely the kind of man he is,” Ralph seethed. “I have known him my entire life. A man does not change, Harriet.”

“ You did,” she said, simply, “when the Earldom required it of you. You rose to the challenge.”

“As shall I,” Jeremy put in smoothly, “to be the best man I can be for Harriet.”

Ralph looked from one to the other wildly. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Don't be an oaf, Ralph!” Reuben Ridlington cried out from his place on the bride's side of the church.

“You will need to prove yourself worthy of my sister. I do not know that you can do it. I do not know what proof would satisfy me. I know too much about you,” Ralph muttered, spreading his glare across Jeremy, Reuben, and Nash, who sat next to him.

Another voice spoke up. From the rearmost pews on the bride's side of the church, a man rose. Harriet recognized Doctor March, her brother's Harley Street physician, and clearly a friend enough to be invited to his sister's wedding.

“I believe I may be able to provide something of a character reference,” March said, blushing furiously at the attention that was suddenly focused on him.

“You see, I am undertaking a charitable project to bring medical care to those who cannot afford to pay for a physician's time. But I could not finance it on my own. I sought royal patronage, funding from Parliament, and every member of the Lords. None were willing to see their money thrown away to help the poor. All wanted a return on their investment, which I could not provide. Except that man.”

He pointed at Jeremy.

“I know now that his own plans were scuppered because of the money he gave to me. Investments that would doubtless have made him rich were ended so that my profitless but noble cause could be paid for out of his own pocket. He has more nobility in him than the entire aristocracy of England.”

His words ran out across a suddenly silent church. Harriet gaped at Jeremy, who gazed back at her coyly.

“Hear, hear!” Henri cried out, “Ralph, I will be offended greatly if you continue in your opposition to this man, as will my father!”

Ralph was looking at Jeremy as if seeing him for the first time. He shook his head.

“I would never have believed it,” he whispered. “I… I cannot have any objections to you marrying my sister, Jeremy. I wish both of you happiness.”

Harriet threw her arms about her brother, crying with happiness.