The Rogue's Folly

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Just so you know I shall abide by whatever he says. If he wishes to turn me in to English law, I will go. He was in danger, and it was all my fault.”

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes, then sat on a small stone bench set in a shelter at one end of a reflecting pool. Their hands stayed twined and May thought how good, how right this felt to her. He was the husband of her heart, as he could never be the husband of her body. And so she would always think of him, as her lover, husband, most adored mate for life.

  If only he felt the same.

  She glanced over at him. He was gazing into the distance and absently stroking her hand with his thumb. “This must be so hard for you,” she said.

  “It is. I would not be here but for your insistence.”

  “I know,” May said, her heart breaking at the tortured sound of his voice. “It must be so difficult to know the . . . the woman you love is . . . is . . .” Her voice choked and she could not continue.

  He darted a glance at her and took a deep breath. “Yes? The woman I love is . . . ?”

  “Etienne, I know how you feel, how much you love Emily. If it would help to talk . . .” She broke off again, her voice thick with emotion.

  “Of what do you speak?” Etienne asked, watching a tear spill from the corner of her eye. Never had he seen his little one weep. Why now?

  “It must be hard to know she is up there, bearing Baxter’s child, in pain . . .” She broke off when she saw the look of mixed confusion and laughter on his face.

  “My dear little one, what an imagination. Is that what you think, that I have been cherishing the tendre for the marchioness?”

  Her blue eyes were clouded with confusion. “Well, yes. Haven’t you?”

  He shrugged and made a face. “I felt for her at one time passion, yes. And I like her. She is a very good woman, but not for me. I am glad the foolish marquess has mended his fences and is now to carry on the line with his wife. Emily deserves happiness, and as you once told me, she very much loves her husband.”

  May puzzled through all of the misconceptions she had been carrying. She could not possibly mistake his calm tone, his detached demeanor. She almost missed what he next whispered.

  He murmured, “No, she is not the woman with whom I have fallen in love.”

  “Who is, then?”

  “Can you truly not deduce?” He shook his head and gazed down at her, a trace of a smile on his lips. “I have been more circumspect than I would have thought, then.”

  Her heart throbbed erratically. What did he mean? Who was the woman? She felt the dawn of a trembling hope. “Etienne, just say it . . . tell me. With whom are you in love?”

  He shook his head, and was about to answer, when Baxter Delafont came striding around the corner of the manor house.

  “I heard you were here,” the man growled. “What do you want?”

  He did not say a word to May, but she stepped between the two men, for Etienne had risen at Baxter’s approach. The marquess’s lean, grim face was set in angry lines, but his black eyes were shadowed by fear and pain, and considering Emily’s dangerous state, May tried to be gentle, despite the harshness of his words. “Please, my lord, this is surely not the ideal time, but will you listen to what Etienne has to say? Without anger?”

  He looked up at a third-floor window and clenched his fists. May guessed that was where Emily lay, and she put out one hand and laid it on his powerful arm. She felt his muscles tense.

  “They sent me away,” he said, dark anguish in his voice. “They say I am agitating Emily with my pacing, but she’s in pain! It’s too early. Something is not right. I can’t lose her; I can’t.” He stifled a sob and his face was twisted into an ugly grimace.

  “I understand how you feel, my lord,” Etienne said gently.

  The marquess sent him a dark look of utter disgust, his lip pulled back in a snarl of hatred.

  “Not for Emily . . . Lady Sedgely!” Etienne hastily said. “But I have recently watched the woman I love in danger, and it is the worst feeling I think I have ever suffered. I am truly sorry for your anguish. I will pray for her recovery, for your sake. God will be merciful.”

  May stared at him, but he would not meet her eyes. Who did he mean? Was he just cozening Baxter with false sympathy? But no, his voice held remembered pain, and great sympathy.

  After a long minute when he stared at Etienne, and the younger man stood still and calm under his scrutiny, the marquess said, “Walk with me. I will listen to you, but I swear if I do not like what I hear, I reserve the right to beat you to a pulp afterward.”

  Etienne gave May a look and shrugged. I told you so, he mouthed to her. Then he said, “It is a deal, my lord.”

  The two men walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  May paced anxiously in the large central gallery that the great hall opened into. Baxter and Etienne had been gone for hours! In that time Emily had not yet borne her child or children, and her labor continued.

  At first May had been calm and had taken tea; she had even read the newspaper. But as the hours went, she began to worry. The marquess was not noted for his even temper, and was, in fact, accounted a dangerous man to cross. Emily once told May that she knew her husband struggled every day with his anger, but that it was a point of pride with him not to lose his temper, and never to show physical evidence of it, unless in a dangerous spot.

  So she could hope that Etienne was still alive, at least. But where were they?

  The front door opened and the two men came in at that moment, their heads bent together in conversation, and she let out a long sigh of relief. It could not have ended badly if they were still speaking. Just then a thudding sound on the steps into the hall from upstairs echoed, and all three looked up to see Dodo, as old as she was, fly down the steps. She looked around wildly and then flung herself at her nephew, her long arms going around his waist in a fierce embrace. She was incoherent, but to everyone’s amazement the woman who some condemned as taciturn and others as just cold kissed her nephew right in front of May and Etienne.

  The marquess held her away from him and stared into her eyes. “Is she all right? Is my Emily all right?”

  “She is radiant, perfect! You are a father, Baxter. Two!” She wept and clung to her nephew, tears streaming in rivulets down her cheeks and dripping onto his coat. Her hair was wild, pulled out of her normally tidy bun, but her expression was joyful. “A boy and a darling little g-girl!”

  With an inarticulate yelp of happiness Baxter raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time, followed closely by his galloping aunt.

  “Two babies,” May sighed happily. “What a happy day for them.”

  “Indeed,” Etienne said. “And thank a merciful God all are well, and I am no longer the heir presumptive.”

  She turned and looked at him, noting the weariness on his face. “Did you sort out your differences?” she asked, a note of tenderness in her voice. She wanted to gather him to her and ease his fatigue. He was limping, she had noticed, the wound still not healed up, although it was more quickly on the mend. But he still should not have been on his feet for so long, especially if they had been walking the whole time. She did not doubt that they had, as the marquess’s anxiety for his wife would probably not allow him to rest for long.

  “We did. I offered to stand still while he beat me to a pulp or ran me through with his sword. I think that helped. And then I told him everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything,” Etienne said firmly. “And I apologized, first for the lies I told, and for trying to kill him.” He gave her a wry smile. “That took much on his part to forgive. But he finally said that in an odd way, I brought him and Emily back together, for she came to him out of concern for his injury after Delisle coshed him. And so though he might deplore the method, he said, he could not argue with the outcome. Then he questioned me at length about my family, the little that is left of it: my sisters, me. I told him how my father died
, a hero, struggling against the revolution’s vicious campaign of hatred.”

  Eventually, after a meal, May and Etienne were invited up to see the new children, two minuscule pink squirming bundles with the grand titles of Sylvester Baxter Eggleton Delafont, Earl of Hartwick, and Lady Dianne Charlotte Eleanor Delafont. For a few minutes May sat and held in her arms the tiny Lady Dianne. Her heart throbbed with an odd, pulsing beat as she looked down at the tiny, perfect fingers and pudgy, wrinkled face. Mere hours old, the baby still had that red color of a newborn, but to May it was beautiful. She had never thought herself one for children, but somehow, with this brand-new life in her arms, she thought she could certainly come to love them. Especially one of her own.

  She glanced up to find Etienne holding the tiny Lord Sylvester in his arms and gazing steadily at her with an indescribable look in his tawny eyes. What a father he would make, she thought, and incredibly, tears welled in her eyes. How she would love to share that with him! She blinked the tears away and surrendered the baby back to Baxter, who tenderly carried the girl child over to her mother.

  They had, of course, been invited to stay. Emily had been a little weepy and clearly exhausted from her ordeal, but she insisted that she wanted her dear friend May to stay at least overnight. Now that May knew the woman was not the object of Etienne’s affections it was much easier to smile at her and agree, and remember the closeness they had shared. And so, after a late supper and a little conversation with Dodo, she retired to her room and allowed Hannah to ready her for bed.

  But May was restless. Nothing had been settled, and so much that Etienne had said that day puzzled her. There had not been a single moment alone to talk, in a household with two new babies as the center of the world.

  Unable to sleep and unwilling to just lie in bed awake all night, May crept down to the library, hoping to find something to read that would be a soporific. With a start, she saw a figure framed in the window looking out at the waning moon. Was it Baxter? But no, this figure was not quite so tall.

  It was Etienne.

  She squared her shoulders as if preparing to do battle, and walked quietly to the center of the room. It was time to find out what his true feeling were about everything, because she was tired of guessing.

  “Etienne,” she whispered, very aware of her long hair floating around her shoulders, and her flimsy nightrail under a soft challis wrap.

  He turned and her breath caught at the tortured look on his handsome, haggard face. “What is wrong?” she gasped, crossing the carpeted floor to him. She took his hands and stood staring up into his dark eyes.

  “Nothing is wrong. Nothing. I will be leaving in the morning, unless you need me to escort you back to Kent.” He pulled his hands out of her grasp and turned to gaze out the window again at the moon-touched landscape.

  “Leaving? Why are you leaving?” she asked. But in her heart, she felt her questions were answered. He could not love her and be so willing to leave.

  “I must go. We both know that.”

  She pushed his shoulder, forcing him around to look at her again. “I don’t want you to go!”

  “Do not make this harder for me, little one,” he said, anguish staining his beautiful voice. He moved to take her in his arms and then stopped, letting his arms rest at his sides. “I must go. You may tell your people that I . . . that I died. That will surely preserve your honor, your reputation.”

  She looked up into his eyes still. She took a deep breath and said, “Or we could marry.”

  He laughed, a mirthless sound in the dull quiet of the library. Her heart constricted as if he had stomped on it with one booted foot. If he could laugh at a proposal of marriage from her, it was the end and hope was dead. She had taken her chance, risked all, and lost.

  “Oh, little one, if only it were that easy. But I have nothing, and you, ah! You deserve everything.” His last word trembled in the air with deep feeling, and he reached out one shaking hand to caress her hair. “You should have a man with an unstained past, a man with position and money and estates, who could give you jewels and carriages . . . And I . . . I have nothing to give you.”

  “Does that mean . . .” Her voice quavered. “Does that mean that you like me a l-little?”

  “Like you? I lo—” He broke off abruptly.

  “What?” she asked, her breath catching in her throat, her heart thudding sickly. “What were you about to say?”

  He shrugged and turned back to the window, and glared out on the scene below. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and with a sudden violent movement he turned and caught her to him in a hard embrace. “My own, my little one, mon ange, I love you, I love you, je t’adore, ma petite,” he whispered into her ear, kissing her neck and holding her close. “I never believed in love, but I fell into it, not believing in it. I love you! It is going to kill me to leave you.” His voice was hoarse and anguished.

  Tears coursed down May’s cheeks and her head spun in absolute joy. “Oh, Etienne!”

  His lips closed over hers and she was swirling in a dark, sweet dream, spiraling down into some valley of fragrant flowers and soft sighs. His strong arms surrounded her with his love, and she gave herself up to it. He whispered endearments in French, then in English, and finally reverted wholly to French to express his deepest feelings and desires.

  He loved her. She was the cherished one of his heart, and always would be. Every day away from her he would die a little. Her heart sang in joy, and finally she understood the complex emotions that coursed through her. It was a perfect amalgam of love and desire and tenderness. It was the sweet union of two hearts, two minds, two bodies melding into one even as they kissed and touched and whispered in the darkness.

  But at last she awoke from her dream to find herself sitting on his lap in the big leather chair behind Baxter’s desk. She had her hands wound around his neck and her fingers in his dark tousled curls. He was silent and still, and she pushed back from his chest so she could look down into his eyes.

  “Is that why you would not make love to me when I so shamelessly asked you to? Because you love me?”

  He nodded, gazing up at her in the dimness. “I have never wanted a woman more than I wanted you, but also I knew you were an innocent. To take that innocence, to seduce you, would not have been right, and I loved you too much to do that harm to you.”

  “I was coming to you to tell you I wasn’t a virgin, just so you would make love to me,” she said dreamily. “That was how Dempster caught me out of the house in my nightrail. I wanted you so very badly that I was willing to lie to you.”

  “Ah, my dear, but wanting, needing, desiring are not enough. I say this, I who have made a life’s work of sexual conquest.” He took her face in his hands and stared into her blue eyes. “I love you. Do you . . . but no.” He released her face. “I have no right to ask,” he whispered.

  “Ask!” she commanded.

  After a long pause and a searching look, he asked. “Do you love me?”

  She kissed him firmly on the lips and wiggled back into his arms. She lay against his chest and nuzzled his ear. “I love you, my own Etienne! I didn’t even know what love was, but I fell into it and adore you with every bit of my body and soul and heart. Would I want to make love to you if I did not love you? Of course I love you! I have loved you since that first morning, the ride back to London on Théron.”

  He was silent.

  “Don’t you have anything else to say?” she asked, sitting back up and gazing into his eyes, exasperated.

  “I do not have the right to ask anything more of you.”

  She sighed. “You have every right in the world,” she urged.

  “But I do not.”

  “Oh, Etienne, you foolish, foolish man!” she said, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Must I do everything? All right, I will. Will you marry me? Please, Etienne, will you marry me and make me the happiest woman on earth?”

  He swallowed hard and his eyes widened. “Are you sure,
my brave little one? I have nothing to give you but my love.”

  “And I have nothing if you don’t give me that. Marry me.”

  “Yes, my courageous love. Yes, I will marry you.”

  • • •

  It was the day she had been waiting for, but now that it was finally here she was as nervous as a green girl at her first ball. Hannah fussed over her, doing up the last pearl buttons on her ivory silk gown and then placing atop her head the wreath of gold and bronze fall flowers that would be her only adornment. Her whole body quivered and she felt like throwing off her gown, finding a pair of breeches and running away with just Cassie for companionship.

  What was wrong with her? She was marrying the man she loved in less than an hour in the tiny gray stone chapel on the Brockwith grounds. It was what she wanted. All of her friends and family were there, and Etienne—handsome, gallant, adorable Etienne—was even now donning a gorgeous new suit of blue Bath superfine.

  “Leave me for a while, Hannah.” As the maid did as she was bid, May stalked over to the window and stood looking blindly out over the Surrey landscape. Somehow it all seemed so calculated. She had spent the last month attending her mother’s wedding, and readying for her own wedding day, standing for innumerable gown fittings, deciding on music, and a menu for the wedding breakfast . . . augh! It had seemed so simple when she asked Etienne to marry her, but then it became immediately complicated with all the details and fuss to which every wedding was prey.

  There was a tap at the door behind her and she called, “Come in!” The door opened and closed, but she could feel no curiosity about who invaded her sanctum.

  “I think she is suffering bride nerves; what do you think, Celestine?”

  May whirled to find Emily and her niece Celestine St. Claire standing inside the door in their wedding finery. Celestine was to stand up with her, and her husband, Justin, was to stand up with Etienne.

  Celestine crossed the floor and took May in her arms in a gentle embrace. Her intelligent gray eyes scanned May’s face and she nodded. “Bride nerves,” she agreed.