In Love with the Viscount (American Heiress Trilogy Book 3)

by Julianne MacLean

  Adele braced herself for the worst. “Did he murder her, Damien?”

  “No. He threatened to, but then he ran out. My mother tried to go after him, and that’s when I came along. She took my horse from me, but she fell along the way, galloping across the park, and that’s how she died. I was the one who found her because I was running after her.”

  Feeling a deep pain in her heart, Adele spoke in a hushed tone. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I ran home to tell my father, and that was even worse than what I had told him before. Then, on the day they buried my mother, he went into Whitechapel and got himself stabbed. Purposefully, it’s believed. I blamed myself, of course, for causing all that destruction.”

  Adele swallowed hard at the shock of all this. “But you were just a boy. It wasn’t your fault. And you were only the messenger.”

  “Not a very tactful one.”

  Adele put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He squeezed her tightly in return.

  “But this morning,” he said, “my grandmother told me that my father suffered from what she called an unsteady constitution, and that he had tried to take his own life more than once. Even before he met and married my mother.”

  Adele laid her hand on Damien’s cheek.

  “For years she’s been trying to convince me that what happened to my parents was not my fault,” Damien said, “but I never believed it. She didn’t want to tell me about my father’s past attempts to end his life because she feared I might think I inherited that trait, and that I might give in to it.”

  They both gazed at his grandmother for a moment. “How do you feel about all this now?” Adele asked.

  “I believe that I need to forgive the nine-year-old boy who didn’t know any better. But I don’t believe I will ever be able to let go of the guilt. I will always feel remorse when I remember how I told my father. I did not try to spare his feelings. I didn’t even think of that. I was only angry at my mother and wanted to see her punished. I said terrible things about her.”

  Adele digested all this with understanding. “You were only nine, Damien. You didn’t have the maturity to understand what was happening. It’s only natural that you were angry. And you’re right. You do need to forgive the nine-year-old boy you were then. Your regrets are the regrets of a man who knows how he would handle the situation today. And you most certainly would handle it differently. I know you would. I’ve seen the way you’ve handled everything that has happened between us, and how you have treated Harold.”

  Damien kissed Adele’s hand. “You are very kind,” he said.

  Adele swallowed over the lump in her throat and fought to keep tears from her eyes.

  “Let’s not talk about that anymore,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

  Adele watched his face, so beautiful in the gray light filtering in through the windows. His dark eyes were closed. He looked calm as he kissed the back of her hand, then held it to his cheek.

  “It’s been a trying day. Just give me this moment.” He kissed her hand again.

  Adele trembled. She couldn’t have told him to stop if she’d wanted to. All she could do was revel in the sensation of his soft, warm lips upon her skin.

  “You can have as many moments as you wish,” she whispered, wanting to be selfish and greedy for once in her life, and barely recognizing the husky timbre of her voice. “I’m tired of fighting it.”

  He stopped and lifted his gaze and seemed to be waiting for an explanation.

  She didn’t know if she should tell him about her decision not to marry Harold. She was afraid of what Damien might think. Would he see this as another careless, thoughtless act from an inconstant woman who could not be faithful to the cousin he loved? Or would he be pleased? Pleased that she was finally following her heart?

  She continued to watch his expression, then felt her own eyes grow heavy with yearning. She was in love with this man. She couldn’t deny it, and the truth was flailing inside her, kicking and screaming to get out....

  “I’m not going to marry Harold,” she said at last, and the weight of the whole world lifted from her shoulders. There. It was out. Damien knew. “I’m going to tell him as soon as I can.”

  Shock glimmered in Damien’s eyes. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I don’t love him, and it wouldn’t be fair to either one of us.” A hot quivering began in Adele’s belly, and she glanced at the bed, wondering fleetingly if the dowager was awake, if she could hear them.

  Just then, the outer door of the sitting room opened. Both she and Damien stepped apart in time to see Eustacia and Beatrice push through the double doors to the bedchamber.

  Eustacia stopped when she saw them. “Damien. I didn’t realize you were here.”

  Adele glanced at her mother, who regarded her with disapproval.

  Eustacia crossed to the bed. “Hello, Mother,” she said softly, but the dowager did not stir.

  Damien turned his back on all of them and walked to the window. He gazed out at the gray sky. Adele’s body was still trembling because of what she’d just told Damien.

  She didn’t know what consequences would arise from her confession. Her mother was not happy with her decision. That much she knew. What would Eustacia think? And Harold? And what would Damien want after all was said and done? She couldn’t deny that she was still dreaming of a happy ending with her handsome black knight. Even now, her body was warm with desire and anticipation after what had just occurred between them. She wanted more of him—more conversation, more touching. She hoped her cheeks were not flushed.

  Beatrice moved to stand on the other side of the bed and turned her eyes to Adele. “I wonder where Harold is?”

  Adele heard the reprimand in her mother’s voice, for she had always considered Damien a threat, even though Adele had never openly revealed her feelings.

  Quite unexpectedly, the dowager stirred. “Did someone mention Harold?”

  Eustacia leaned over the bed. “Yes, Mother. Adele is here.”

  “Adele?”

  “Yes, that’s right. She’s engaged to Harold. Remember?”

  “Oh yes,” the dowager said sleepily. “Harold was here earlier, but he went to the teahouse.”

  The teahouse. As soon as the words passed the dowager’s lips, Damien’s gaze shot to meet Adele’s. The teahouse was their place together, and Harold had gone there for some reason.

  “Perhaps I’ll take a walk and find him,” Adele said.

  “Yes, you should,” her mother replied, as if she sensed an urgency in the present situation.

  “He would like that, Adele,” Eustacia said. “He is quite worried about his grandmother. He’ll be pleased to see you.”

  Adele nodded, and walked out.

  After Beatrice and Eustacia left the room, Damien approached the bed. “Harold is not in the teahouse, Grandmama. You know he never goes there. Why did you tell Adele that?”

  Her white hair was splayed out all around her, and she slowly, weakly turned her head on the pillow. “Because I thought you needed to be alone with her. You should go there.”

  “You heard our conversation?”

  “Of course,” she said, her voice shaky and without vigor. “And I saw your lack of discretion just now, holding her in your arms like the wicked scoundrel that you are. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling better all of a sudden.” She tried to sit up. “I think I might be able to take some soup.”

  Amused as he so often was with his grandmother—and more than a little relieved to see the return of her fighting spirit—Damien gently eased her back down. “Don’t try to get up, Grandmama. You’re ill.”

  He tucked the covers in all around her.

  “I was quite surprised,” she added, “when Adele admitted she didn’t want to marry Harold. I almost laughed, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  He
chuckled softly.

  “What are you going to do about it?” his grandmother asked.

  Damien sat down and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know. Harold will be devastated when she tells him.”

  “Devastated is not the word,” his grandmother replied. “He will be disappointed, without doubt, and his nose will be out of joint, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer along with him.”

  “But it is almost certainly my fault that Adele is changing her mind. I kissed her. I talked to her about things that were entirely too personal. I corrupted her.”

  His grandmother took a moment to gather her strength before she answered, managing somehow to rise up on an elbow. “You corrupted her with your charm, you devil. You awakened her to passion. You could hardly help it, but she’ll be all the better for it.”

  “I’ll never forgive myself.”

  His grandmother lay back down again. “Now that is something I will not hear. You have tortured yourself long enough over other events that were not your doing, and I will not go to my grave believing that you intend to continue torturing yourself about something new.”

  She began to cough suddenly, and Damien helped her sit up for a moment.

  “But there is something,” she said, when he laid her back down, “that I must tell you, Damien. I am ashamed of myself, and I cannot go to my grave if—”

  “You’re not going to your grave, Grandmama.”

  “Yes, I am. If not today, it will be some other day, because that is life. Everything that lives, dies eventually.”

  Damien kissed her frail hand. “Have you not told me enough today?”

  She shook her head. “Not nearly enough. There’s something you need to know about your mother.”

  Damien felt all his muscles grow tense. “What is it?”

  She coughed again, then managed to say, “Your mother didn’t marry your father for his title to satisfy her own ambitions. She had been most cruelly forced into it by her father.”

  Damien narrowed his eyes at his grandmother. “But after she died, everyone said—”

  “I know what everyone said, and that is what I am most ashamed of. I could have squashed those rumors, but I remained silent.”

  “Why?”

  A tear spilled from her eye. “Because I was angry with her for how she betrayed my son. I was heartbroken over his death and I needed to blame someone. But she was very unhappy in the marriage. She loved that other man. She always did. She could never give him up. Looking back on it now, I think she should have run off with him instead of doing what her family wanted her to do.”

  “‘That other man,’ you say. There was only the one?”

  “Only one. And I believe she tried her best to love your father, but it was not a good match.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Partly to ease my own conscience,” she replied. “I should have told you before and I should have been more understanding about your mother’s situation. All she ever wanted was love. Instead, I nursed my anger for too many years.”

  Damien held his grandmother’s hand. “But she committed adultery.”

  “Yes, and she suffered for it, and then she died for it. I don’t want you to suffer, Damien. Learn from your parents’ mistakes and marry for love. That is where you will find the honor that has eluded you all your life. And remember that not all marriages end in heartbreak. Not if there is love.”

  Damien nodded and bowed his head.

  “Adele is doing the right thing,” his grandmother added. “A loveless marriage brings disaster for everyone. She should not marry Harold if she doesn’t love him.” She squeezed Damien’s hand. “Tell me the truth now. Do you love her?”

  “I might,” he whispered.

  “Liar. There is no ‘might’ about it. I saw you holding her just now. And aside from being a great beauty and the object of your desire, that young American is intelligent and sensible. She has honor. And you have a great deal in common. Any fool could see you are meant for each other. I’m surprised Harold didn’t see it and bring her home for you instead of himself. But that is Harold, isn’t it? Never really seeing what is outside of a beaker. He’s got his head in a glass box, that boy.

  “If you want to help him, pull him out and slap him across the face. Wake him up. We’ve all been protecting him long enough, because he is so much like your father and we’ve all been frightened to death that he will turn out the same. And you... You’ve been trying to make amends for what happened to your father. That is why you’ve hovered over Harold all your life, and you know it. But he is a grown man, and his happiness is not your responsibility. To protect him now, and to let Adele slip away, would only force the past to repeat itself. Marry for love, Damien. No matter the cost.”

  Damien listened to his grandmother with surprise and confusion. She was telling him to betray Harold.

  But Damien was not even sure Adele would ever want him as a husband, even if he did what his grandmother was suggesting. Especially if he did. Adele was unshakably honorable, and she would have reservations about dashing into the arms of her fiancé’s cousin so soon after she’d jilted him.

  On top of that, Damien knew she did not respect him. She knew about his search for a rich wife, and about Frances and the other women before her, and Adele did not believe he was capable of being faithful. She’d even said they didn’t trust or respect each other, and they reminded each other of their weaknesses. He wasn’t sure she could ever let go of those impressions, even if he did everything in his power to convince her otherwise.

  Yet his grandmother was right. Anyone with eyes could see that they were made for each other. They shared the same interests, and Adele was at least attracted to him in the physical sense. She had proven it in bed with him and in the teahouse, and again today when she’d admitted she was tired of fighting her passions.

  He wondered if he should go down to the lake and talk to her. Perhaps he could at least determine what might be possible after she ended her engagement to Harold.

  Damien smiled at his grandmother and kissed her hand, then rose from his chair, and left to fetch his horse.

  Chapter 24

  Adele reached the little round teahouse on the lake and stepped past the overgrown grasses that lined the path to the door. There was no horse tethered anywhere nearby. She approached the door and knocked but no one answered, so she circled around to a window, cupped her hands to the cool glass, and peered inside. The teahouse was empty. All she heard were the soothing sounds of the woods—oak leaves whispering in the soft breeze, English sparrows chirping, and the gentle cooing of wood pigeons. Harold must have come and gone.

  Adele closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh scent of the lake. The forest beckoned to her in its usual way, so she decided to take advantage of the solitude. She wandered along the mossy bank of the lake and found a fallen tree to sit upon.

  A short while later, she heard a horse nicker and the soft tapping of hooves over grass. Adele rose to her feet just as a horse and rider appeared from around a bend in the path. It was not Harold, however. It was Damien, and her heart leapt.

  What a sight he was—darkly handsome and striking on his big black horse.

  “Harold’s not here,” she explained. “I couldn’t find him.”

  Damien walked his horse closer, came to a stop, and dismounted. He stood a few feet away, his expression serious. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Bewildered, she sat down again.

  Damien led his horse to a tree and tethered him. “I doubt Harold was here at all today. He hasn’t thought of this place in years.”

  “But your grandmother said—”

  “My grandmother can sometimes be a busybody,” he informed her, walking toward her, bending under a low-hanging branch. Twigs snapped under his footfalls. “And I’m sure it gave her grea
t pleasure to manipulate the goings-on in the household this morning. I think it helped revive her. She asked for soup.”

  “That’s wonderful news.”

  Damien joined Adele on the fallen log. He plucked a long piece of green grass and wrapped it around his finger. “I should tell you that she saw us together in her room earlier when we thought she was asleep. She heard everything we said to each other.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It’s not the end of the world,” Damien added. “She already knew how I felt about you. Don’t ask me how.” He tossed the rolled-up blade of grass into the water.

  Adele felt strangely numb with apprehension—a simmering fear that events would unfold too quickly, in a way she could not control. “Did she hear me say that I wasn’t going to marry Harold?”

  “Yes.”

  Adele covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t want anyone to know about that yet, not when she is so ill. The last thing I wanted was to come here and upset everyone.”

  “Grandmother wasn’t upset,” he said. “She has become forgiving in her old age, I’ve just discovered, and she can certainly keep a secret.”

  For a while, they sat together looking at the lake and listening to the ducks quacking. Then Damien turned to her. “What will you do, Adele, after you tell Harold the truth?”

  “I will go home to America,” she replied without hesitation. “I want to start over and take time to think about what I want out of life, not what my parents want for me, or anyone else. I want to be free.”

  His voice was calm and serene like the lake. “You would not consider staying here and starting your new life in England?”

  “No,” she said quickly, because she was afraid to hope for things she was not sure of, and she was not sure of Damien. “This is not my home.”

  “But you were willing to make it your home with Harold.”

  “That was the old me,” she said. “The new me knows that I do not want to live like this.” She gestured in the direction of the house.