Page 37 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)
Thirty-Three
“ I am sorry, but I have done something most alarming.” May shook her head. No, too dramatic, Logan might get angry before hearing the news.
She had spent half the morning in pitched combat with her own hands. She twisted her right thumb until the flesh was red; she knotted her fingers together behind her back, then front, then tucked them under her arms as if pinning herself in place might stop the trembling. It did not.
Three times she approached Logan’s study, and three times she retreated, defeated by the sight of the closed door, the muffled scrape of a chair within, the sound of her own heart pounding.
If she were less cowardly, she might have feigned a letter or spilled ink on the rug—anything to prompt Logan to come out, to meet her on a more neutral field. Instead, she lingered in the hallway, rehearsing phrases in her mind and hating each one.
“You must not be angry.” This sounded worse. “It is possible I have made a small error, biologically speaking, in the matter of…” Absolutely not.
The clock on the stairs struck noon with the finality of a judge’s gavel. May bit her lip and resolved that this would be the last attempt, or she would die and be rid of the business altogether.
She rapped at the study door. A moment later, Logan’s voice called out. “Come in.”
She entered, bracing herself. He looked up, his steely eyes sharp and clear, as if he’d been waiting for her all along. May drew a breath and closed the door behind her.
He gestured at the visitor’s chair. “Have a seat.”
“I will stand,” she said, although her knees doubted the wisdom.
He regarded her over the steeple of his fingers. “Has a foreign power declared war? Or have you simply lost another of Rydal’s socks?”
She ignored the taunt, launching directly into her prepared speech. “I am not ill, nor have I lost anything significant, although the day is young.”
Logan sat back, the lines at the corner of his mouth tightening. “That is a relief, but also a shame. I had hoped for an interesting story.”
She pressed on, refusing to let herself falter. “I have a matter to confess, and it is not a small one. I should rather tell you at once.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
May swallowed, hard. “It concerns my person. My body, specifically. I have… that is, my courses—” She stopped, the words congealing in her mouth.
Logan arched an eyebrow. “Your courses?”
May nodded, feeling her cheeks flame. “They have failed to appear. For more than a week.”
He stared at her, all humor draining from his face. For a second, he seemed unable to form a response, and then—slowly, like a man at the end of a long calculation—he said, “You think you are with child?”
Her breath came out in a rush. “Yes. I mean, I do not know. I have never been late before, and I feel…” She gestured helplessly. “Changed. My appetite is odd, and sometimes I am ill in the mornings, but I thought perhaps it was the stress, or the baby, or…”
She realized she was babbling and clamped her mouth shut. Logan had gone very still, and his face was pale.
Oh, no.
He reached for the decanter, poured himself a finger, and drank it all before speaking. May watched each movement, searching his face for a hint of reaction. There was nothing.
He set the tumbler down, folded his hands on the desk, and said, “Forgive me if I am misunderstanding, but you believe you are pregnant.”
May nodded, feeling sweat bead on her brow. He watched her, his eyes unreadable. “Have you seen Dr. Langley?”
She shook her head. “I could not bring myself—what if it is a false alarm? Or worse, what if he tells everyone, and it turns out to be a mistake?” she braced herself, voice dropping to a whisper. “I wanted to tell you first.”
Logan rubbed his jaw, as if considering the problem from all sides. Then, with careful precision, he asked, “Is there any possibility, May, that you are mistaken about the circumstances?”
She blinked. “How do you mean?”
He exhaled softly. “That you have not… in the mechanical sense… done anything that would produce a child?”
May flushed so violently she thought her hair might ignite. “We kissed,” she said, “and I recall the particulars quite vividly. And then some time later, my courses stopped.”
Logan closed his eyes. Just for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “May, that is not how it works.”
She stared at him. “Are you certain?”
He laughed, though not unkindly. “I am afraid so.”
“But all the mamas in the ton , they are forever warning about kisses, and potted palms, and standing near the ferns after dusk. I thought?—”
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. “May, that is an elaborate fiction created to terrify young women into chastity. You cannot—no one can—become pregnant by a kiss.”
She sat abruptly on the edge of the chair. “But if that is true, why the fuss? Why was I not properly informed?”
“Because,” he said, and she could see he was fighting not to smile, “the ton are idiots. And because it is easier to control what one fears than to teach a person the truth.”
May felt the heat rise to her ears. “So you are saying I am a fool.”
He shook his head, but she could see the laughter lurking. “I am saying you are inexperienced in this one, very particular, extremely specific area.”
She glared at him, half mortified and half outraged. “Well, I suppose that is your fault, as my husband. You might have explained it.”
He allowed himself a small, wicked smile. “Would you have believed me?”
She considered, then shook her head. “No.”
A silence fell, in which May wished, fervently, that she could vanish through the floorboards and be trampled by the kitchen staff. Logan poured a second glass, sipped, and regarded her with renewed calm.
“I am glad,” he said at last.
She looked up. “Glad of what?”
“That you are not in any danger. And that you are not… afflicted, as it were. You are well, then?”
She did not know whether to laugh or slap him. “You are impossible,” she said. “First, you have me panicking for three days, then you call me a fool, and now you are relieved I am not increasing!”
Logan’s face shuttered, but not before she caught a look—some sharp edge of worry that was quickly sheathed. “I do not want you to be unhappy, May,” he said. “I never did.”
Embarrassment flooded her, and she stood so quickly the chair skidded back. “It is a good thing, then, that I am not your problem anymore.” She turned on her heel.
“May,” he called, but she was already at the door.
She paused with her hand on the latch. “Do not follow me. If you wish to be left in peace, you have it.”
He started to rise, then thought better of it. “I only wanted?—”
“You do not know what you want,” she said, not turning. “But I do.”
She closed the door behind her. Logan was relieved that she was not with child, and all of her earlier fears had been confirmed. Not only was she a fool, but an unwanted one.
“Bexley!” Logan bellowed.
Logan had told himself it was only a bad patch, the sort every marriage endured. He told himself she was not punishing him and would return to her own self after a proper interval. He told himself many things, all of them plausible, none of them true.
What he could not explain was the sound of her absence.
It echoed through the house, unsettling the servants and causing the clock in the front hall to run five minutes slower, as if time itself had lost its footing.
Logan tried to work, but his penmanship drifted on the page; he tried to read, but the words rebuffed him.
On the third day, he snapped and summoned Bexley. When the butler arrived, Logan gave him a look that had wilted many a lesser man. “Where is my Duchess?”
Bexley swallowed. “Her Grace is not at home, sir.”
“Where is she?” Logan ground his teeth.
“I believe she is visiting Hyde Park with the infant, Your Grace. Miss Hall and Miss Abbot accompanied her.”
He resisted the urge to throttle something. “Did she say when she would return?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Bexley. That will be all.” He dismissed the butler, then slumped into the nearest chair and tried to convince himself he was not angry, but merely disappointed.
Why do you care? he asked himself. You have always valued your privacy and time. You married for duty, not for this—this endless ache when she is not around.
He realized, with some disgust, that he had begun to look forward to her intrusions—the way she hovered in the doorway with her spectacles slipping down her nose, her mouth opening and closing as if she was debating the merits of speaking at all.
He missed the way she corrected his Latin under her breath, or the way she smuggled cake from the kitchen and left crumbs on the ledgers. He missed her with the desperation of a starving man.
Logan waited. At half-past three, the footman announced, “Her Grace has returned.” He did not go to meet her but remained as he was for a full ten minutes, then made his way to the nursery.
He found May in the rocker, cradling Rydal, her head bowed so that her hair obscured her face. She did not look up when he entered. Logan stood in the doorway.
“Was the park pleasant?” he asked.
She started, then composed herself. “Very pleasant. The ducks are in high spirits. Rydal nearly leapt from the carriage trying to join them.”
“Ducks are overvalued,” he said, but it did not come out as lightly as he intended.
May stared at the baby. “They are very loud, but they know exactly what they want.”
That sounded like a jibe intended for him. He crossed the room and leaned against the window frame. “Do you?”
She glanced at him. “I think I do.”
“May, I want to apologize for the other day. I was… not myself.”
She set her jaw, but did not reply.
“I did not mean to insult you. Nor did I mean to dismiss your concerns. I am not—” He stopped.
May stared at the wall. “You do not have to say anything, Logan. It is over.”
“That is precisely the problem.” He bit it off, then tried again. “I do not want it to be over.”
She gave him a look. “You do not want an heir, nor a child, nor a wife who complicates your life. I am not an idiot, Logan. I understand what you want.”
He stepped forward, unable to keep still. “What I want is for you to be here. With me.”
May shook her head and pressed her lips. “You want a companion when it suits you and nothing more.”
“Untrue.”
“Then what do you want from me?” her voice quavered, but she did not drop her gaze.
He drew a deep breath. “I want you to trust me. To tell me things. To stop hiding in the hallway whenever you think I am in a foul mood.”
She looked at her lap. “You frighten me, sometimes.”
Logan felt something twist inside. “I would never hurt you.”
She glanced up, brief and bright as a comet. “Not in the way you think.”
He reached out, but she flinched away, gathering Rydal closer.
Logan dropped his hand. “I am sorry,” he said again, this time almost inaudibly.
She stood, rocked the baby a few more times, then placed him in the cradle. “If you will excuse me, I am quite tired. The air in the park is exhausting.”
He nodded, and she left.