Page 25 of Starlight and the Duke (Cherish and the Duke #5)

“F iona, why are you crying?” Rob asked, already feeling exasperated by the time they reached their fishing spot shortly after daybreak the following day. He had chosen to settle on a grassy patch along the stream that ran behind Northam Hall and flowed southward toward the English Channel.

It looked like a promising spot, so he’d spread out a blanket for them, since the grass was still wet with dew. He set down the fishing poles and bucket of bait beside it.

Fiona ought to have been smiling, but instead she was struggling to hold back tears.

He vowed he was going to give up trying to understand the fairer sex.

What had happened to overset her now? Perhaps it was the remnants of a morning mist eerily hovering over the water, the long wisps moving toward them like bony gray fingers and frightening her.

Fiona was never one to easily frighten. But he could not think of what else might provoke her sudden bout of tears.

“I am not crying,” she insisted, wiping her cheek with her sleeve.

“Fine, my mistake.” He baited her hook, handed her the fishing pole, and was about to take up his own when he heard her sniffle again.

He sighed. “Do you not want to fish? I’ll take you back to the manor, if you prefer.”

“No, it isn’t that. I love fishing.”

He might have believed her if she weren’t still weeping while declaring it. “Then what is it, love?”

“Rob, I am so unhappy.”

He knew it, and it tore him apart.

He took the fishing rod he’d just given her out of her hand, set it aside, and then drew her over to a nearby fallen tree. After settling himself on the sturdy trunk, he lifted her onto his lap and circled his arms around her.

No one was going to see them, and did he really care if someone was up early and caught them together like this?

She wrapped her arms around his neck and began talking into his chest. Talking and crying.

Well, was it not better for her to get her feelings out while they were alone and no one was around to judge her or gossip?

“I am truly happy for Margaret and Cherish. I am thrilled for them and could not be more excited. But what if we receive similar news from Eden and Lynton, and Camborne and Jocelyn…even Ramsdale and Ailis? Having made their love matches, they’ll want to start their families next.”

Yes, there would probably be a wave of new babies born this year.

“And you are afraid you will be left behind?” he ventured.

She nodded. “Is it awful of me to want this so much for myself?”

“No, it isn’t awful of you,” he said, stroking her hair and wishing he could do something, anything more to make her feel less miserable. “Everyone wishes the same for you.”

“Being here with you, fishing poles in hand, sent me back to a happier time when we were young and full of dreams. We saw our futures stretched out before us and everything was possible.”

He nodded, but remained silent, since she had more to say and he wanted her to get it all out and unburden herself in the hope it might provide her some relief.

“We used to go fishing together on those lazy, hot summer days. Remember, Rob?”

He nodded again and smiled. “Back then, we had resolved to conquer the world. I remember.”

“Then there was that last summer together when Shoreham proposed to me and I saw my life and all its possibilities laid out before me, all that promise ready to be scooped in the cup of my hands. I was already dreaming of the children we would have. I was so sure we would have four, and I gave them all names in my head.”

He remembered her chattering about it. But it was all boring nonsense to a boy of eleven who simply wanted to fish.

She sniffled again. “What is wrong with me? Why am I not able to—”

“Stop. We don’t know that the problem was ever with you.”

“But—”

“No, a few short days with me in your bed does not count. I don’t even want to contemplate what Shoreham did or did not do with you in all the years of your marriage.

I know he was good to you, and I am not faulting him for any of this situation.

But he was not all that capable in bed, and may not… ”

Gad, did he dare say it?

He sighed. “I have no idea if the two of you were doing it right.”

This only made her cry harder.

Well done, Durham. Make her feel worse, why don’t you?

“What I am trying say, rather ineptly, is…you need to give us more of a chance, Fiona. One week is nothing. Give us several years to see if this can work.”

“Living together unmarried?”

“Do not give me that it-is-sinful look. You know I would marry you this very day if you were willing. My offer of marriage remains open and shall remain so until you are ready to accept me.”

She let out a breath. “You know I cannot.”

“Do not start that discussion again,” he said, trying to hold back his frustration.

“That choice is mine to make, not yours. The world will not stop if my title is extinguished. The lands attached to the title will revert to the Crown. But everything else I own, the mines, the mills, the ships, the funds, are mine to leave as I wish. I am going to protect those who rely on me to the best of my ability. And who is to say the Crown will not pass on the grant of title to someone else who is brave and worthy?”

He kissed the top of her head and continued in a gentler voice.

“Enough, Fiona. Give me your hand in marriage. It is the only way the two of us will ever be happy. Forget about giving me another three days or another week or even another year. We need to give each other a lifetime together as husband and wife.”

“You will grow to despise me once you realize we can never have children.”

“I could never despise you.”

“Resent me, then.”

“Nor resent you, because it would be my choice and I am agreeing to this commitment with full knowledge of the risks and possibilities.”

“Maybe I should give us a year to see this through,” she said in a hesitant whisper. “It will be time enough for you to realize the futility of this situation.”

Or time enough for her to realize they were meant to be together.

He pounced on the comment, afraid she might take it back in the next breath. “Yes, a year would be good.”

Hallelujah. He’d grab whatever he could.

This was what he needed, time for her to learn to put her own desires first and cease bending over backward to accommodate what she perceived as his duty to the Crown and the Durham title.

Whether her aching desire for children would be fulfilled was up to the Fates. Of course he wanted children. But he wanted their bright-eyed offspring.

He would still love her and cleave to her no matter what the future held.

The choice was an easy one for him, since he had always been in love with her. He did not want the typical ton marriage his parents had entered into. Those two were happiest apart from each other. What was the point of marrying if they made each other miserable?

Also, he was proud of Fiona and refused to have her appear as lesser in anyone’s eyes. He would not insult her by having rumors swirl that she was his mistress. She deserved to be held in the highest regard, and that would only happen if she were his wife and duchess.

“A year seems an awfully long time,” she mused as her tears abated and she began to look at him with clearer eyes.

“It will fly by too quickly,” he insisted.

She sniffled yet again.

“We deserve this chance, Fiona. What have we got to lose? And we might gain everything,” he reminded her, unwilling to allow her to withdraw her decision. “What is one short year out of our entire lives?”

“I know. Still, it is scary, isn’t it?”

“Do you want to know what is even scarier for me? Not having you beside me in my life.” He kissed her again on the top of her head. “Whatever happens, we’ll work it out together.”

She let out a breath and nodded. “Yes.”

Blessed saints.

Had she just agreed to a full year with him? He ought to have taken her fishing sooner, for this was more than she had ever agreed to before. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

There was a note of wistfulness in her laughter.

“I’m not sure. One burden removed but another added.

My mind is a tangle of fear and hope. I cannot recall ever crying as much as I have this summer.

But everything is changing around me and I feel helpless to stop it.

On top of it all, I am a bundle of raw emotion.

Those stark feelings tend to come out whenever I have my monthly courses. ”

As they had a few days ago, to bring an early end to their week of debauchery. Watching her curled up in pain at the onset had left him feeling helpless. But he was glad to be there beside her, offering what little comfort he could give.

He thought back to their childhood days and remembered her very first time, for he had been there even for that. He was all of seven years old and had almost fainted on the spot upon noticing the fresh bloodstain at the back of her gown. Both of them had run screaming back to Fiona’s house.

It had taken him a full week to calm down. But Fiona had chirped like a little bird and smiled throughout the week, because she was now a woman.

Perhaps this was the moment he had started to lose his best friend.

He had no intention of ever losing her again.

He raked a hand through his hair. What a history they had together.

Since she was feeling talkative, he listened to her spill her thoughts just as he used to do when they were children.

Only, he never understood what she was talking about back then when she chattered about being trained to make her debut.

He would simply bob his head and grunt a “yes” every once in a while as she went on about being fitted for gowns, taking dance lessons, learning how to pour tea, because friends were supposed to be interested and show they cared.