Page 29 of Starlight and the Duke (Cherish and the Duke #5)

Fiona felt her heart tighten, as though someone had caught it in a vise and was now squeezing hard. Rob was the kindest, most thoughtful man alive. It shamed her to think he was being treated so badly because of her. But had he said something that ought to have been left unsaid?

“Why would Bromleigh do such a thing unless you confided our private business to him?”

His eyes widened. “Do you seriously believe I would ever be so indiscreet? But I did tell him that I arrived early to propose to you because I am in love with you.”

She groaned. Of course. Rob was so infuriatingly noble sometimes. “Why did you tell him that?”

“Because it is the truth. I love you and marrying you has always been my intention. I did not come to you for the chance of bedding you for a few days…as enjoyable as satiating myself on your body was. I hoped to prove we belonged together for a lifetime.”

“But you never said a word to him about doing… you know …with me?”

“Of course not.”

She shook her head, now thoroughly addled. “And he kicked you out because of your honorable intentions? How could he be so cruel? What else did you tell him? You must have said something more.”

“No, Fiona. I said not a word,” he insisted, frowning in that lovely, serious way he’d done ever since he was a little boy, and she had grown to love.

“That love fest you and I had going on is no one’s business but ours.

Nor would I ever say anything to embarrass or shame you. Surely you know this.”

She let out a breath. “I do, Rob.”

“What did you tell the ladies?”

She felt her cheeks heat. “Nothing, but I do not think I hid my feelings as well as you.”

“You do not hide your feelings at all,” he said with a light groan, smiling wryly as he brushed a stray curl off her cheek when the wind whipped it out of place. “So, they know you behaved like a wanton and craved me in your bed?”

She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “Rob!”

His smile broadened. “Do you crave me, Fiona?”

“Shut up. The point is, you cannot leave. I will not allow you to leave. I’ve told Gawain that if you go, then I go, too.”

“Why? He was not wrong in wanting to protect you.”

“From you? Of all people? Hah! You are the last person on earth who would ever hurt me.” She felt indignant and at the same time anguished, because he was not blaming her, even though she was at fault for his now being treated so shabbily.

“I’m glad you think so, but you are wrong about this.

I think we have it in our power to do more damage to each other than anyone else ever could.

In fact, you are the only one who could ever shatter my heart because I gave it to you so long ago and you still have full possession of it.

I need you to hold on to it, Fiona. Hold it and cherish it as I will always cherish yours.

This is why Bromleigh wants me gone. Can you blame him?

My presence is only causing you a mountain of pain, and he does not want to see you hurt worse than you already are. ”

Her eyes began to water. “And he thinks kicking you out will somehow make it easier for me?”

He sighed. “Are you crying again?”

“No… Maybe! Having you with me these past few days has made this the most wonderful time of my life. I will not have it end before I am ready.”

“Let’s be honest with each other, shall we?” he said, sounding more bitter than she had ever heard him. “All we are doing is digging our knives deeper into each other and leaving gaping sores. How will this end, Fiona? Will we keep cutting each other up until our hearts are nothing but shreds?”

She stared at him, hardly able to breathe. “No, being with you can never be wrong.”

“Then why must we ever part?”

“Because…it is for you. Only for you. How will you feel five years from now when you realize there can never be any children for us?”

“I already know this is likely and am willing to take the risk. How many times must I say it?”

“It isn’t merely likely but certain . Rob, you will grow to regret your choice.

You’ll look at me with the same wretched disappointment that Shoreham felt as the years passed and I could not give him children.

I cannot bear for the same to happen with you.

Not with you. I would never recover from that. ”

She covered her face with her hands and quietly sobbed. “Why can you not stop loving me? It should be simple to do. Aren’t I more of a nuisance than I am worth?”

“Shoreham made you feel as though you were to blame?” he said with more than a trace of anger in his voice.

He took her hands in his and moved them off her face so she could not avoid looking at him.

“Why did you not tell me sooner? Is this what has been torturing you all along? Oh, love. What happened? Why would he do this cruel thing to you?”

She released a pained breath. “He was not trying to be cruel, but he was certain I was the one at fault. You see, there was an incident in his younger days. A lady claimed she was with child and he was the father. It happened several years before he and I met and married. I never learned of it until well into our marriage.”

“This is why he blamed you? Since he had supposedly fathered a child, the lack had to be entirely yours?”

She nodded. “When he confessed this to me, I suggested we find them and help them out because Shoreham… Well, I am ashamed to say that he paid the woman a small sum of money to keep her quiet about this embarrassment, and then forever afterward ignored his responsibility to her and the child.”

“Assuming he had any duty to them at all and it wasn’t simply a ruse on the part of the lady in question,” Rob said, his voice low, as though he were quietly contemplating this revelation and feeling considerable outrage on her behalf.

“Shoreham wasn’t exactly the brightest candle when it came to women.

He could easily have been duped by someone with a scheming nature. ”

“I considered this possibility. However, we shall never know. She got the money out of him months before the child was born, before she was even showing, or so he claimed when I got the details out of him. He never saw her after that or ever bothered to find out whether she had given birth and whether it was a boy or a girl.”

“It was a child born out of wedlock, so I doubt it mattered to him,” Rob mused. “And the lady never came back to him asking for more?”

Fiona let out a ragged breath. “No, she never did. I quietly started a search for her.”

“Why? Were you thinking to delight Shoreham with a son he never knew? Obviously he did not care, or he would have conducted a search himself.”

“I don’t know why I did it,” she said miserably.

“Feelings of guilt for my failing, perhaps. In any event, I wanted to make certain the child, if he or she were ever found, would be properly cared for. Shoreham never knew and I never told him anything of what I was doing. The Bow Street Runner I hired to investigate the matter was reputed to be one of the best. A man by the name of Homer Barrow.”

“I know of him,” Rob said, still holding on to her hands and gently stroking them with his thumbs because this was his nature, always determined to comfort and protect her. “He is very good at what he does.”

“Several months later, he gave me his report.”

“What did he tell you?”

She struggled not to cry again. “He claimed there was a child.”

Rob’s eyes widened in surprise. “And he is certain it was Shoreham’s?”

“Well…”

“What, Fiona? What are you not telling me? Was there a doubt about the paternity?” He began to quietly seethe. He’d always had this way about him, a quiet strength that made one feel secure when confiding in him.

She nodded. “Some questions, yes. Mr. Barrow reported to me that the young lady married a young man shortly after receiving Shoreham’s money.

The pair sailed to Boston within a month of the wedding.

He found out very little more, for her parents had passed away by the time I engaged Mr. Barrow to investigate.

So had the young man’s parents. He could find no siblings or other family members to question, so he sought information from neighbors and friends.

Some had heard she had given birth to a child, but that it did not survive past infancy. A girl, one of the neighbors told him.”

“Yet you say Mr. Barrow had doubts? Did he believe her approaching Shoreham was a ruse? That she had duped him into believing the child was his in order to give her funds enough to cross the Atlantic and start a new life with this young man?”

Fiona let out a shaky breath. “He thought it was a possibility, but could not say for certain. He had no proof, only a gut feeling.”

Rob pursed his lips while in thought. “So, after all this, you still remained in doubt.”

“No, Rob. This was confirmation that the fault was mine. The girl came from a respectable family, a local tradesman’s daughter.

She was not some transient woman off the streets.

Does it not make sense that a father, upon learning of her situation, would quietly find a good man to marry her and take her away in order to avoid scandal? ”

“Or perhaps this man was her sweetheart all along and they devised this scheme in order to amass enough funds to start a new life. Did Mr. Barrow dig up information on this young lady’s character?

Or that of the young man? What of her family life?

Was the father strict? Cruel? Your Bow Street man must have sensed something amiss to claim he had doubts even if he had no hard proof. ”