Heartless Duke

by Scott, Scarlett

  But his brother did not seem at all inclined to take pity upon him. “Which question?”

  “You know which bloody question,” he growled. “My duchess. Is she well?”

  “Well enough,” Clay said mildly. “She has been experiencing some illness recently. Mother is quite pleased by it. You might be also, but I cannot be certain. That is also the reason I have come.”

  Bridget was ill. Fear squeezed his heart.

  “What ails her, and why would Mother or I be pleased she has fallen ill?” He longed to smash his fist into something. The wall, perhaps. He could send crumbles of plaster raining down. Make a hole so large it would require patching.

  Yes, perhaps some damage and destruction would be just the thing to cure the darkness inside him.

  “My wife is suffering from the same ailment.”

  Leo stared at his brother, trying to comprehend. “Goddamn it, Clay, cease talking in riddles and tell me what is wrong.”

  “You are going to be a father. Your wife is with child.”

  Air fled his lungs. He could not breathe. Or speak. Joy rushed through him, chased quickly by fear. Bridget was going to have his babe. It defied logic. He could not wrap his numbed mind around such a possibility. That together they could have made a child. That he would be a father.

  “Sit down,” Clay advised him, clapping him on the shoulder and leading him to a chair. “Before you fall down.”

  Leo surrendered to gravity. His legs gave out, and his arse planted itself in the chair. Still, he could not seem to breathe or form coherent words. He had never been so shocked. So filled with the tender riot of happiness and awe.

  “Take a deep breath, old man.”

  He did at last, gasping it in, feeling like a drowning man whose head had just broken the surface of the water long enough for him to breathe. Gradually, sanity returned to him. “I am younger than you are,” he reminded his brother in a voice that sounded rusty. Thick with emotion.

  “And far less wise,” Clay observed unkindly.

  He frowned. “I would argue that point.”

  “Yes, you would. But I would still be correct. Evidence: here you sit in London, while your lovely wife has been abandoned in Oxfordshire for the past fortnight.”

  “My lovely wife betrayed me,” he bit out, “and she was hardly abandoned. She had the company of all the rest of my family.”

  “She feared for her brother,” Clay said softly. “She made mistakes, but she has owned them and apologized for them all. We have forgiven her for what she did to us and to Edward. She and Ara are getting on like sisters, and they are already plotting up a Ladies Home Rule society.”

  Of course they were. He was not surprised to learn his family had already fallen in love with Bridget and forgiven her. She had stolen the heart he no longer thought he possessed. She was special and she was rare, the sort of woman a man longed to unburden his secrets to, even those he had never previously fathomed saying aloud.

  But she had also hurt him. She had done the one thing he did not think he could find it within him to absolve: she had lied to him and colluded with the enemy. Had told him she loved him, spent every night in his bed, welcomed him into her body, and yet she had kept the summons she’d received from John Mahoney a secret. She had gone to meet the man.

  “I am grateful you forgave her,” he said honestly, staring into the carpet as if it would provide him some much-needed answers. “I am merely not certain I can do the same. This is deep, Clay. It goes not just to the bone, but to the very marrow.”

  “Clearly you must have harbored some tender feelings for her at some point, else she would not be carrying your babe,” Clay observed.

  Correctly, damn him.

  “I love her,” he admitted, and it was also true. Her betrayal had left him angry and disillusioned, but it was not the same as Jane’s betrayal so long ago. Because he loved Bridget, and he had never loved Jane. He knew that now.

  “Hell, Leo. What are you doing here in London?”

  “My duty.” And he had. Finalizing the investigation into John Mahoney had been his driving force. The man had manipulated his wife and landed her brother in Kilmainham. He had also intended to abduct Edward, and he had orchestrated the slayings in Phoenix Park. He was a dangerous, murderous coward. Leo had wanted to be certain any lingering connections to him were in prison where they belonged before anyone else could be hurt.

  “The League can wait, brother.” Clay rested a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “You have greater responsibilities now.”

  “The League will wait forever.” He looked up from his meditation upon the carpet at last, meeting Clay’s gaze. “I resigned from my post today.”

  Shock flitted over his brother’s ordinarily stoic mien. “You resigned?”

  He inclined his head. “Yes.”

  “You?”

  A wry smile quirked his lips at Clay’s disbelief. “None other.”

  “Sodding hell, Leo. The League is your life. Why did you not tell me sooner?”

  It had been his life, yes. But the strange thing was, when he looked back upon the years he had devoted to service, he realized the League had been his only life. There had not been time or energy for anyone or anything else. The League had been his duty, and he had loved being at its helm. But in other ways, it had also been his anchor.

  Today, he had sliced that rope, leaving the anchor on the bottom of the sea, and he did not regret it. If only the decision to move forward with Bridget could be as easy and clean.

  “The League was my life,” he agreed, “but now I am ready for another life. A new one.”

  “Make that life with your wife and your babe,” Clay said.

  “I want to,” Leo said with raw honesty. “But I am not certain if I can.”

  Bridget sat at the small escritoire in her chamber at Harlton Hall and frowned down at the letter she had been attempting to write as another wave of nausea made her gut clench. Mornings filled her with dread. They were spent gagging at the slightest hint of a scent—almost any scent, even lovely ones like flowers seemed to punish her unmercifully—or casting up her accounts into a chamber pot.

  By lunch, she was able to take weak tea, and by afternoon, she was functional and human once more. It was an irony of the richest order that Ara, her new sister-in-law, who was also increasing, suffered no such ill-effects of her condition. Bridget supposed if anyone ought to suffer richly for her sins, it was her.

  But even through the misery that had become her days in the last week, one thought kept her happy.

  She was going to have Leo’s babe.

  It was enough to make facing each day worthwhile. Over a fortnight had passed since Leo had unceremoniously delivered her to Harlton Hall, not staying long enough for the dust to even settle on the drive, before he had swung back into the carriage and headed back to the train station and his life in London. The life she was suddenly no longer a part of.

  The letter mocked her, a quarter written, two sentences struck through, another not even finished. She had accepted her exile as best she could. She understood Leo’s anger and hurt and that he needed time. She knew she had wronged him most grievously. Knew too she had been misguided, that she had made the wrong decision, a decision which had placed the both of them—and, unwittingly, their babe—in unnecessary danger.

  She regretted what she had done every day.

  But she could not return to the awful moment when she had decided to heed John’s call. She could not change her mind. The dye had been cast. Her choice, however foolish and reckless and hurtful, had been made. Her only defense was she had been desperate to help her brother, and she had believed she had made the choice which would enable her to do that.

  With a sigh, she reread her letter as composed.

  My Darling Dearest Husband Leo,

  I write you this letter to inform you I am with child. The child is, of course, yours. If you still wish to pursue the annulment, I recommend you do so with haste, as it will beco
me impossible when my condition becomes apparent. It is my most sincere hope you will not do so. I am so very sorry for everything.

  “Damnation,” she muttered aloud, crumpling the latest attempt in her fist. Perhaps she was being too conciliatory, too apologetic. The blame was not solely upon her shoulders, was it? Her movement sent a fresh wave of sickness through her, and she had to swallow in quick succession, fighting back against the by-now-familiar bile.

  A tap at her door interrupted her self-loathing.

  “You may enter,” she called, reasoning it was either Ara or Lily Ludlow.

  The kindness and compassion Leo’s family had shown her—a stranger dropped into their midst, and one who had previously caused them a great deal of anguish at that—never failed to humble her. She had not known people with such giving hearts existed in this bitter world, and she was grateful she, undeserving though she may be, had found them.

  Lily swept inside, followed by a servant bearing a tea service tray. Wearing an emerald-green morning gown trimmed with lace, ribbon, and intricate beading, her dark hair shot with silver strands swept into an elaborate coiffure, she was stunning.

  She beamed at Bridget. “How are you feeling this morning, my darling daughter?”

  She mustered up a smile for Lily’s benefit. Her cheer was infectious, and as a motherless daughter, Bridget could not deny the notion of having this lovely, giving, kindhearted woman as a mother figure was incredibly alluring. “I am feeling as well as can be expected.”

  Learning she was carrying Leo’s babe had been a shock. She was wise to the world, but for some reason, she had naively imagined they would need to be married longer for such a circumstance to occur. She pressed a loving hand over her flat abdomen, marveling at the life growing within her, such a fragile miracle.

  Lily instructed the domestic to deposit the tea tray on a low table, then dismissed her, waiting until the maid had gone to turn back to Bridget. “Have I interrupted your correspondence? If so, you need only say the word and I shall go.”

  “No.” Bridget rose, walking with minced steps to join Lily in the small seating area where they ordinarily shared a late-morning tea. “I was attempting to write a letter to Leo and failing miserably, I am afraid.”

  “Ah. That explains your expression when I first entered.” Lily came to her, casting a comforting arm about her waist and guiding her into a chair as if she were an invalid. “There you are, my dear girl. I brought my ginger tea once more, the blend that seemed to settle your stomach yesterday.”

  In addition to possessing one of the most giving hearts Bridget had ever known, Lily also excelled at gardening. She cultivated her own herbs and blended the flowers, leaves, and stalks into teas and tonics. The spicy, delicious tea she had brought to their impromptu morning visit yesterday had indeed soothed the roiling upset of Bridget’s stomach.

  “Thank you,” she said, with genuine appreciation as Lily handed her a steaming cup and saucer, and the familiar, soothing notes of the tea hit her nose.

  Bliss.

  For the second day in a row, her stomach did not object to the delicious scent. It was nothing short of miraculous.

  “It is my pleasure.” Lily seated herself on the chair opposite Bridget. “I know all too well how unpleasant your condition can be.”

  Bridget sipped her tea, hoping it would combat the fresh wave of nausea that had assailed her just then. “It is a happy condition. I can only hope Leo will find it the same.”

  Lily’s lips compressed, her eyes growing sad. “Leo has a soft heart. He has been wronged in the past. Do not give up on him, my dear. He needs you. The past has made him slow to trust, and even slower to forgive, but he will come back to you. My Leo is different than Clay. Both of my sons have been wounded and wronged, but one by the woman who should have loved and protected him the most.”

  “He told me about the duchess,” Bridget said softly, hating to revisit such evil even by the mere mentioning of the woman. “What she did to Leo, poisoning him…” she shuddered with revulsion. How a mother could deliberately harm her own son was beyond Bridget’s comprehension. “I am so grateful he has you.”

  “I am proud to call him my son. Others would frown upon me, would never recognize me. Not Leo.” Lily’s smile softened, her eyes glistening with tears. “He has been unhappy for so long, Bridget. He deserves happiness. He deserves to be loved. You love him. I know you do, and I know he loves you as well. From the moment you first came here to Harlton Hall, I sensed something different about you. I saw the way he watched you then, and I knew you would be the one for him. A mother can sense these things.”

  Guilt struck her anew for the way she had initially met this wonderful woman, for all the deceptions she had perpetrated and the pain she had left in her wake. “I am so very sorry for what I have done. When I came here, I thought it would be simple. An assignment to carry out, and I would save my brother’s life. But it became far more.”

  Lily took a sip of her own tea. “Love always becomes more than we bargain for. When I first met Leo and Clay’s father, I was a singer. I lived my life on the stage. I traveled the Continent and even went as far as New York City before coming back to London. It was my largest show. And there was a mountain of a man waiting for me afterward, a duke, the handsomest man I had ever seen. He wanted to make me his mistress, and I had no intention of being any man’s kept woman.”

  “What did you tell him?” Bridget asked, eager to hear Lily’s story, this untold piece of Leo’s past.

  Lily chuckled. “I told him to go to the devil. He was newly married, though unhappily so, an arranged marriage he had been forced to accept. I had no wish to be any man’s mistress. But he was persistent. He returned, night after night. Followed me to different cities. Once, he turned up in Paris. It was the night I gave in. That man had loved me enough to chase me, even when he had no reason to. A hundred other women, all more easily obtained than I, could have been his instead. But he chose me.

  “He pursued me. And he loved me. It took me some time to realize that. To accept I would always be his mistress and never his wife. But in the end, the love we shared and the life we lived was worth any sacrifice I ever made. I realized the most important decision you can ever make in your life is to love someone. Loving is not easy. It is raw and messy and hard-won. But it is also worth every struggle made to gain it.”

  Lily’s story warmed her heart. It gave her hope. And courage too. Maybe all was not lost. “How do I make Leo follow me to Paris?”

  Lily grinned. “Oh my darling girl, you won’t have to go as far as Paris. I have it on good authority he is already on his way here as we speak.” She paused. “And if he isn’t, I shall hunt him down and box his ears.”

  Bridget had no doubt she would.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Leo landed back at Harlton Hall much as he had what seemed to be a lifetime ago, with a small cadre of servants and one armed guard, dusty, travel-worn, and weary. This time, there was no impending wedding, and he had not spent the previous night surrounded by the most depraved and licentious acts imaginable. Instead, he had spent it stroking his cock and wishing his hand had been his wife’s delectable cunny.

  He was also accompanied by two additional people. One was Clay, who had convinced him to flee London. The other was a surprise for Bridget.

  Here he was, prepared to do his duty.

  Duty was still everything to him, but it held a different, deeper meaning now: family. His family was in the process of expanding. Exponentially so, it would seem.

  Clay was having a babe.

  Leo was having a babe.

  And he had another brother.

  An Irish brother.

  He glanced at Cullen O’Malley as the carriage slowed to a halt before Harlton Hall. Freshly arrived from Dublin, he was slight of figure, gaunt-cheeked from his imprisonment, and young, so very young. But he had Bridget’s black hair and blue eyes. That they were siblings was undeniable. He was mild mannered, a f
riendly lad, grateful to no longer be imprisoned, and the second statement he had made to Leo after thanking him for his freedom had been a threat.

  If you ever cause my sister any grief at all, Carlisle, you will have me to answer to.

  Yes, Leo rather suspected Cullen would fit right in with this protective, eccentric, thoroughly odd clan he loved.

  “Your sister will be most pleased to see you,” he told Cullen. “She worked tirelessly to have you freed.”

  “She put herself in danger for me, and I know it.” Cullen bowed his head. “I cannot thank you enough for your persistence on my behalf. I am sorry to have mixed her up in the circles I found. I…thought they were my friends.”

  “We are your friends now, lad,” Clay told him, offering him his hand.

  “Your brothers,” Leo added, putting his hand forward as well. “Our family is small, but fierce, and you will always have a home with us.”

  “Always,” Clay reaffirmed.

  Cullen nodded jerkily, seemingly too overwhelmed to speak. He shook both their hands, and then the carriage door opened.

  They descended, one by one, soles finding the solid gravel of the Harlton Hall drive. Leo clapped Clay on the back. “I expect you are eager to revisit your bride.”

  Clay gave him a meaningful look. “You as well, brother. Do not be a fool.”

  He was about to say he would not be, that he was going to attempt to speak to Bridget, to solve their differences, when the door of the hall opened. A trio of females burst forth, skirts flurrying down the front stairs, one dark-haired lad following in their wake. Ara, Lily, Bridget, and Edward met them halfway.

  Leo did not miss the astonished joy on Bridget’s lovely face as she took in the sight of her brother. “Cullen! My God, Cullen, is it truly you?”

  O’Malley stalked forward, arms open, and a sleek blur of skirts launched herself at him. Leo was dimly aware it was his wife, elated to greet her brother after so long. Cullen’s arms tightened around her, and he rocked backward, lifting her feet from the ground. As one, they twirled, laughing, clutching each other delightedly. Leo watched their unabashed joy, and for the moment, the sweet panacea of contentment washed over him.