She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively, then again.
Finally he stilled. His hands loosened from her hair, and he pulled away from her. She remained there, dazed, as he fell to his knees before her and took her into his arms, his lips pressing into her hair.
He was shaking, she realized. “God, Becky. You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t mean to force you—”
“But… I wanted to. Didn’t you like it?”
“Like…?” He pulled away. Gripping her by the shoulders, he shook her a little. “I loved it, woman. No one… well…” He broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
She brought her gloved hands to his face, turning it so he looked at her. She was so confused. “What? What are you talking about?”
“No other woman has ever done that for me.” He sucked in a breath. “Without… compensation.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Women generally… well, they don’t seem to be fond of that particular act.”
She ran her tongue over her lips, still tasting his salty, tangy flavor. His expression darkened, and he groaned softly.
“Would it be very debauched of me, then, if I told you I enjoyed it?”
He laughed outright, and gathered her close. “I’m more inclined to think I’m the luckiest man on earth.”
“We should go,” she whispered against his shoulder, though her body ached for him to keep holding her.
Sighing, he rose and helped her up, too. He dressed, then pulled on his own gloves as she tied on her velvet hat, took her hand, and led her to the door. When he opened it, they both reeled to a halt, gawking in surprise at the figure standing on the threshold.
A blast of cold autumn air swept over their faces.
And Garrett’s brawny fist shot out and slammed into Jack’s face.
Chapter Sixteen
The blow tore Jack’s grip from Becky’s arm. He careened backward, and Garrett stalked after him into the tiny entry hall, aiming another punch at Jack’s face.
Jack was ready this time. He twisted away, dodging the blow, and followed up with a low fist to Garrett’s stomach.
“Stop!” Becky shouted. “Stop this instant!”
She grabbed her brother’s arm as he raised it to aim once again at her lover. She dug in her heels and yanked him back—away. “What are you doing, Garrett? Stop it!”
He turned, gazed at her for an instant, then whipped back round to Jack, who snarled at him and raised his fists.
“Wait outside for me, Rebecca,” Garrett growled, shaking off her arm.
“No!”
He didn’t look at her again. Instead he adopted a fighting stance. “I’ll take you home when I’m finished with him.”
Becky hissed out a breath. “You certainly will not! If I go anywhere, it will be with Jack.”
Garrett aimed another punch at Jack’s face. Jack dodged it.
Grabbing Garrett’s arm again, Becky pulled back with all her might. She might as well have tried to move a tree trunk. He didn’t budge, but her efforts did gain his attention. He glanced over his shoulder at her, his brow wrinkled, the scar above it bulging and red.
“No more fighting, Garrett! It’s over. I’ve decided to marry him. We were going home this morning.”
Garrett was stiff and solid beneath her arms. He went back to staring down Jack, who stood with his fists up, ready for the next onslaught. “He abducted you from Lady Devore. She came to me—”
“Jack told her he was with me. I wanted to go. I asked him to take me away.”
“She said she knew you were with him, but that she’d expected you to return to her house later that night. You’d been gone for longer than a day, and she was growing concerned.”
“I told her—” Jack began. Then, gritting his teeth, heshook his head. “She was… with someone. She was distracted.”
“There was no reason to be concerned, Garrett,” Becky said. “I wanted to be here with him. We were coming home.”
Garrett turned to stare down at her face. He gripped her shoulders. “Is that true, Rebecca? Because if he is coercing you in any way, if he has threatened you… you would say something, wouldn’t you? Tell me the truth—I won’t let him harm you. Is this what you want?”
Becky glanced at Jack. A thin line of blood trailed down from his nose from Garrett’s first punch. “Yes. It is.” She smiled at Jack. His stance relaxed, and he managed a small smile back at her when their eyes met. “I want to marry him,” she whispered. “More than anything in this world.”
A short time later, the three of them were on their way back to London, crammed together in the carriage in rigid silence. Garrett scowled whenever Jack and Becky came within inches of touching each other, and by the time they arrived in Mayfair, Becky already missed him. Her body craved his touch, and she’d only been separated from him for a few hours.
Still, when they drove up the circling drive at Garrett’s house, Becky was relieved to be home. Frigid air had permeated the carriage all the way from Richmond, and her domino wasn’t meant for this weather. Her elbow ached, her fingers tingled, and she was cold to her bones. She looked forward to a cup of warm chocolate and a nice fire in the drawing room with Jack.
When she stepped out of the carriage, however, Jack gathered her hand in his, brushed his lips over it, and said good-bye. Before she had a chance to protest, he’d dropped her hand and was taking long strides down the drive.
Bemused by his abrupt departure, she watched him disappear down Curzon Street, and then she turned to question Garrett, only to find that he and the carriage had disappeared, too. She asked the footman where he had gone.
“His Grace has gone to the stables to unhitch the horses, my lady.”
Shaking her head at her brother’s insistence on doing everything for himself, she mounted the front stairs, working the top buttons of her gloves. The house was quiet—too quiet. How odd that Kate and Aunt Bertrice had not come down to greet her. With her fingers on the pearly buttons, Becky paused near the foot of the main staircase, tilting her head in curiosity.
Behind her, Garrett blustered in with a gust of cold air. Without bothering to close the door, he stalked past her toward the stairs. She picked up her skirts and hurried after him.
“What is it?” she asked, her heart surging to her throat.
“It’s Kate,” he bit out. “Sam just told me she’s laboring.”
“Oh, Lord.” Becky’s heart banged against her breastbone as she hurried after her brother, taking the stairs two at a time.
Garrett threw open the door to the bedchamber he shared with Kate, Becky at his shoulder. The group of women standing at the bedside looked up in surprise. The bed curtains were open, so Kate was clearly visible. She lay in bed on her back, her stomach heaving, and when she heard the sound of the door, she turned toward them, her face flushed.
“Oh, Garrett. Becky. I’m so happy to see you. I knew you would come.”
Early that evening, Becky sat at Kate’s bedside, holding her new nephew in her arms. This was Garrett’s fifth child. His first two legitimate children—the first with Sophie and the second with Kate—were girls. Then there was Reginald, Kate’s much-younger half-brother, and Charlotte, Garrett’s illegitimate daughter, both of whom Garrett and Kate were raising as their own.
When Garrett was married to Sophie, they’d been barren for years, and he’d never thought he’d have children. Now he had five—and finally, after so very long, he had his heir. Cuddled up in Becky’s arms and lightly sucking on his little fist lay her brother’s tiny son.
Kate lay on the bed in a light sleep, a peaceful smile on her face. She’d wanted for years to give Garrett a son, and now she had. Garrett himself was in such a state of joy he’d been keeping both mother and child awake, and Aunt Bertrice had finally bustled him out of the room.
They’d decided to give him a simple name: Henry. Little Henry James, the Marquis of Winterburne. Born a touch on the early side, he was a tin
y thing, but he was healthy—round and plump and pink, with folds of fat on his arms and legs.
Becky stroked a finger down his velvety little cheek, and he made a soft gurgling sound. A sweet kind of happiness surged in her; he was the handsomest thing she’d ever seen.
A maid peeked in. “My lady?” she whispered.
Becky glanced at Kate, who still slept, then rose and walked over to the maid so she wouldn’t wake her sister-in-law. “Yes?”
“There’s a gentleman come to see you.”
Becky’s heartbeat quickened. “Mr. Fulton?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She glanced down at Henry, who cuddled closer as if to tell her not to give him up to anyone else. “I’ll take him with me. If Her Grace wakes, inform me immediately.”
The maid’s white cap bobbed her assent.
“Where is he?”
“In the drawing room, ma’am.”
“You aren’t to leave Her Grace until she wakes.”
Again, the maid nodded. Becky walked slowly, careful not to jostle Henry, until she entered the drawing room. Jack glanced up. His eyes widened as he rose from his chair.
“What’s that?”
She grinned. She would have thrown herself in his arms if she hadn’t been holding Henry. “Kate and Garrett’s baby,” she said in a low voice. “Isn’t he precious?”
“Er… the duchess had her baby?”
“She did. He’s only a few hours old. We arrived home just in time.”
“I see.” He shifted his stance awkwardly. “Where is your brother?”
“He’s in his study writing letters announcing the birth of his heir to the world.” She grinned. “I have never seen Garrett in such high spirits.”
And although she was tired and hadn’t changed her clothes since she’d arrived home, she was in high spirits, too. The birth had been easy, as births go, and both Kate and Henry were healthy as could be. As with Jessica, Becky not only was honored to have been there, but was still floating from the beauty of it all. There was nothing like hearing the sound of a healthy newborn baby’s cry, nothing like seeing its little eyes open to view its brand-new world. Nothing like watching the look on a mother’s face when she held her child for the first time.
But Jack was a man, and he probably wouldn’t understand any of that. Giving him a beatific smile, Becky made her way to one of the palm-print sofas and settled onto it, holding the babe in a position comfortable for them both.
Her smile widened as he took a seat across from her, casting doubtful glances at the bundle in her arms.
“Where did you run off to?” she asked.
He raised a brow. “Did you think I’d be staying here?”
“Of course.”
“That wouldn’t be prudent.”
“Certainly you’ve no wish to stay with your family.”
“No, I don’t. But fortunately, my brother and father arefar from London—they’ve retired to Kent for the remainder of the season. I went to see Stratford, and I’ll be staying with him for a few days.” His gaze slid once again to the baby. “You are very good with children.”
He said it more as a question than a statement, and she smiled down at the little bundle in her arms.
“I enjoy my nieces and nephews very much.”
“Yet you do not think you will ever be a mother.”
“I don’t think so.” She looked up at him, her heart fluttering like a butterfly wing in her chest. “Do you… will you… will it make you very unhappy if I prove unable to conceive?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I’d never thought of it. Before I met you, I’d hardly thought of marriage, much less of being a father.”
“But if you were to never have a son… an heir…”
“What would a son of mine be heir to?” Jack shook his head. “No, that has naught to do with it. I just… I don’t know. Marriage, children. These are things I haven’t expected to happen to me, since…”
His voice trailed off, but Becky knew what he had almost said: “… since Anne married someone else.”
A spasm of jealousy swept through her. She had to control her breathing in order to squelch it. She couldn’t ask him—she couldn’t even voice the thought aloud. But she wanted, so badly, for him to love her more than he had loved Anne.
It was such a selfish thought that her cheeks heated in shame. Still, awareness of her own selfishness did nothing to eradicate the thought. She wanted Jack’s love. All of it. She didn’t want to share it, even with a dead woman. And she wanted to keep it, not lose it years from now due to a physical shortcoming.
“What if you later decided it was important to you to have a child, a son, and I could not provide you with one?”
He rose from the chair and sat beside her. Mindful of the infant in her arms, he slid an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close, pressing his lips to her temple.
“I am not inconstant in my affections. I would never turn from you for something so trifling.”
“It’s not a trifling matter to many,” she said, her voice rough as sand.
“It’s something neither of us can control. If we have children, I will be happy, most of all because I think itwill make you happy. If we cannot, there is nothing wecan do about it, and neither one of us should suffer for it.”
With a sudden fierceness that stole her breath, she wanted to be able to bear his child. Yet she was almost certain she would never be able to give him that gift.
“Thank you.” She held baby Henry a bit tighter. “We will always have our nieces and nephews to adore, I suppose.”
He cast a dubious glance at the infant. “Yes.” But his voice was halting, and she laughed softly.
“I think you are afraid of him.”
He straightened. “I am not. I… it is just that I see babies so infrequently, and… well, that one is more or less… squished and bruised-looking. It… he looks like a boxer.”
She smiled down at Henry. “He looks like his papa. Would you like to hold him?”
Jack surged away from her. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
She chuckled. “Come, it’s not so frightening.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“Hold out your arms.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then reached out stiffly, his arms stick straight. She placed the tiny bundle in Jack’s arms, then gently bent his elbows into a more comfortable position. Henry gurgled, opened his eyes, gazed at Jack, then drifted off again. Jack stared at him in bemusement.
“There, you see. It’s not so bad.”
He looked up at her, gave her a crooked smile, and then looked down at the baby again. For an instant, Becky imagined him gazing down at another child—their child—and her heart gave a melancholy lurch.
A knock sounded at the door, and Becky called for whoever it was to enter. It was a footman. “My lady, I am to deliver the message that Her Grace has awakened.”
“Oh, thank you. You may go.” When the man closedthe door, Becky looked at Jack. She didn’t wantto leave him, but her first responsibility today was to Kate.
“I must go to her.”
Jack nodded. “Of course. But before you go, I want to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve arranged a wedding date.”
She sucked in a breath. “When?”
“The first of December at nine o’clock at St. George’s.” He cocked his head at her, his eyes sparking with challenge, as if he expected her to protest that it was too soon.
Instead, everything inside her went soft with pleasure at his words. The first of December was six days from now. In just six days, she would be his. “I am so glad,” she murmured. For a long moment, their eyes met and held.
Henry gurgled, and the spell broke. She took the baby from him. “I’ll be ready, Jack. Well, I’m ready now, but I suppose next Saturday will do.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“I’ll see you again before th
en, won’t I?”
“You certainly will. I couldn’t wait that long to see you again.”
He pressed his lips to her temple, and, smiling, she took her leave.
Ping. Ping.
Becky’s eyelids flew open. There it was again.
Ping. Ping. Plunk.
The sounds were coming from the direction of her window.
She waited, taking short breaths, her eyes wide open, clutching the blankets to her chest.
Then: Ping.
She leapt out of bed, paying no attention to her robe, and flew to the window, yanking open the peach-colored silk curtains.
She leaned her forehead on the windowsill, staring down through the glass, a big grin spreading her lips wide.
Jack. He’d been throwing tiny pieces of gravel from the path below at her window, occasionally missing the glass and hitting the wooden casing.
There was nobody in the world she wanted to see more. She’d ached for him since she’d left him in the drawing room yesterday. Tonight, she’d lain awake for what seemed like hours, thinking of how cold and lonely her bed was without him. How lonely she was without him.
He stared up at her, his hat held to his chest. He looked like a bridegroom should, brimming with eager anticipation, warmth, and desire—all for her. Her blood surged with an arousing mixture of excitement and happiness.
She hurried to unlatch and open the window.
“Come up,” she whispered.
He clapped his hat on his head and wasted no time. Her bedchamber was situated at the side corner of Garrett’s London house, and a climbing rose-covered trellis extended from the ground to her window like a perfectly placed ladder. Four years ago, she and William Fisk had climbed down the trellis and fled to Gretna; tonight Jack Fulton climbed it to come to her.
Within seconds, he swung his legs over the windowsill and was inside, instantly turning to close the window. “Good God, you’re wearing almost nothing at all. You must be freezing.”
She’d felt nothing but warmth ever since she’d laid eyes on him. “You climb like a monkey,” she returned saucily.
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