The Dangerous Duke of Dinnisfree

by Julie Johnstone

  “Nonsense,” Audrey chided and handed Arabella a handkerchief to wipe her tearstained face. “You would not have married him if you didn’t know he loved you, and besides that, Sin says the man is a lovesick pup trying desperately to deny his feelings.”

  “He is?” A bubble of hope welled in her chest. If someone else believed it, too, then she was not being delusional.

  “He is,” Audrey replied and squeezed her shoulder. “And I’ll tell you this, when I was pregnant with our daughter, Sin handled me like glass he would surely break. And he did not handle me enough to my liking, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I had to seduce him.”

  Arabella stared up at her friend. “Do you think that’s what I should do? Seduce him?” She had to admit the idea held enormous appeal, though she had said she would deny him her body if he would not say the words. She quickly told Audrey of the desperate threat she had given Justin today.

  Audrey stood and tapped a finger to her chin. “This is not awful. This is rather good, I think. His will to deny his feelings must be crumbling, which scares him and is making him fight harder. Seduction is perfect. Except, once you have his desire at a boil, demand the words. He will say them, and after he says them once the fear will be gone. Problem solved!” she exclaimed with a grin. “Now, I must go to the nursery to see the baby as she wakes from her nap. Do you want to come?”

  Arabella nodded and spent the rest of the day with Audrey and her daughter. By the time Arabella arrived home for dinner, she ordered a light repast be sent to her and Justin’s bedchamber. After she’d eaten, she stripped naked and took a long luxurious bath infused with rose water. After toweling off and dressing for bed, she waited eagerly for her husband to return.

  The crowd at White’s had thinned to five people, none of whom Justin gave a damn about talking to, including Davenport, but as he’d gone to Davenport and asked him to come with him into Town, he could not very well demand his friend leave him alone. Justin had thought to attempt to ask Davenport’s advice on his problem with Arabella, but he could not seem to find the right words.

  Davenport smirked over the rim of his Scotch glass, then set it down. “Are we going to simply stare at each other for the remainder of the night or are you going to finally get to the heart of why you asked me to come to Town with you today?” He gave an exaggerated yawn. “It’s getting late, and my wife will be eagerly awaiting my return, as I’m sure yours is.”

  Justin tensed. “Perhaps not. She threatened to move out of our bedchamber today and deny me access to her new chambers.”

  “Finally, we have come to the problem,” Davenport said. “Why did she do that?”

  How could he explain? It was hard to even think about it. Justin growled, tipped his tumbler up, and drank every last drop of whiskey. He set the glass down with a thud. He didn’t talk of his feelings to anyone. He didn’t want these feelings. They were too strong, too consuming, too terrifying. “I thought I could control how I felt about her. How much I let her in.”

  Davenport picked up the decanter they had ordered to be left on the table. After filling both glasses, he slid Justin’s back to him. “We all think that at some point. It’s foolish. You will never be happy attempting to deny how you feel for her, and you will make her miserable. You may even cause her to hate you or leave more than your bedchamber. She may eventually leave you.”

  The idea of a life without her appalled him. “I thought I could have her as my wife and keep control of how I felt about her, but I can’t. Every day I spend with her, every time I touch her, she closes the distance between us a little more. I thought I could hold part of myself back, but I’m making her miserable, just as my father made my mother miserable.”

  Davenport nodded. “You have two choices. Keep on as you are and you will become your father. Your marriage will be unhappy, and likely, she will eventually leave you. Or give her what she wants.” Davenport stood, moved to Justin’s side, and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s what you want, too, you know. If you really think about it.” Davenport released his hold and shrugged on his coat. “Shall I secure you a ride or are you coming?”

  Justin looked up at his friend, but he saw Arabella in his mind. Her smile. Her twinkling eyes. Her proud face. Her belly swollen with the child they had made out of love. His gut clenched. Love. He loved her. They were to have a child together, and he damn sure never wanted that child to go through what he had endured with his cold father and the loss of his mother. He had been a coward and a fool. Well, no longer. He shoved his chair back. “Wait, I’m coming. I have some groveling to do.”

  Davenport chuckled. “I can assure you, it won’t be your last time, my friend.”

  Arabella was beyond furious when she woke near midnight and realized Justin was still not home. But then she was struck with a terrifying thought. What if she had pushed too hard, and he was not coming back? She knew of lords who lived separately from their wives.

  Her heart grew heavy. She feared the battle was lost if he was not returning home, and they were to no longer live together. Just as she started to pace the room, she heard carriage wheels in front of the townhome. She flew to the window and saw his carriage and the coachman, but she did not see him. Her stomach knotted, but then she heard the downstairs door open, and Justin’s voice as he spoke to the footman was loud and clear. Relief flooded her. Of course he had come home! The need to see him and not just hear him coursed through her. She dashed out of her room to go to him and embrace him. First she’d tell him she loved him, and then she wasn’t certain what she would say. They were at an impasse, but surely he would relent.

  She raced toward the stairs, and when she reached the top, she saw him coming toward her, taking the stairs two at a time.

  “Arabella, I’m sorry!” he called from the first curve in the stairwell.

  “I love you, Justin!” In a rush, she started down the stairs, but the toe of her slipper stuck on something sharp. When she jerked her trapped foot, the weight of her pregnancy threw her forward and no amount of flailing her arms would send her back toward safety. A scream filled her head, heart, and lungs. She saw his eyes widening, his mouth opening in a cry of horror, his hands reaching, grasping, missing. The stairwell was expansive, and her body flew past him just a hairbreadth too far to the left for him to get a firm hold.

  He’d never known true panic before, but he knew that it welled within him now. It choked him as he raced down the stairs after Arabella’s falling body. She hit the floor with a hard smack that shattered his soul. He stumbled in his haste, gripped the railing, and kept going. Mumford was already there, hovering over her. Then the man was standing, moving faster and with more animation than Justin had ever seen, shouting for the footman and then barking orders to fetch Dr. Bancroft.

  Justin fell to his knees beside her. Pain twisted her face. He moved to touch her, but jerked back as she let out a bloodcurdling scream that shattered every ounce of composure he’d cultivated in his life.

  “The pain!” she screamed, gripping her belly.

  Justin’s heart constricted as he took in the dark stain spreading between her legs and covering the floor. “Shh. You’ll be fine,” he murmured, willing it to be so. He turned toward her, and she stared back with wild, glazed eyes.

  “Get him out!” she yelled.

  He froze with a hand hovering near her face, thinking for one moment she was talking about him, but she meant the babe, he realized, as she clawed at her stomach. She thought she was having a boy.

  He placed a hand on her damp forehead and leaned near her ear. “I’m going to pick you up and take you to the bed.”

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t acknowledge him. She twisted her head back and forth, panting, gasping, crying that the babe had to be delivered now. He scooped her into his arms as she flailed. Jesus Christ. Was she going to die? Would the babe die?

  As he climbed the steps with a hammering heart, his own legs trembling, he struggled to gain control and find som
e small bit of the cold composure that was like breath to him. It was as if he were blind and searching for something thrown into a never-ending pit. His chest physically ached and tears burned his eyes.

  When he reached the bed, all he could do was look at it. He could not put Arabella down. She wailed incoherently in his arms, and he knew with perfect terrifying clarity that it was too late for him. He loved her beyond reason. He could put continents between them, and the distance would not be enough to make him indifferent to her. He’d never again be the man he once was, but he understood in this moment that he was glad for it.

  She’d been correct to say going through life numb was not living. He wanted to inhale life with her. “Arabella,” he whispered raggedly and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  Her eyes fluttered open briefly, but she squeezed them shut on a grimace. Behind him, he heard the rapid approach of footsteps, and then Dr. Bancroft was there with his nurse, instructing Justin to set her down gently and get out.

  Justin laid her on the bed and went around to the other side to kneel by her. He could not leave her. This was his fault.

  “Your Grace,” Dr. Bancroft snapped as he leaned over Arabella and ran his hand over her stomach. “Please go.”

  “No,” Justin replied. “I’ll move if you need me to, but I’m not leaving her.”

  The nurse’s eyes went wide, but Dr. Bancroft shook his head at her. “As you wish,” the physician said. “But I must warn you that there will likely be a great deal of blood with the birth.”

  “I’m not squeamish,” Justin snapped as he watched the nurse prepare Arabella. “Will she—” God, he could hardly form the question because the possible answer terrified him. He gritted his teeth. “Will she live? Will the babe live? Be all right?”

  Dr. Bancroft’s sympathy-filled eyes made Justin’s stomach clench into a hard, pulsing knot. “You don’t know,” Justin whispered, feeling as if his heart had been ripped from his chest.

  “I don’t, but I’ll do all in my power to help them both.” The physician leaned over Arabella and whispered in her ear. “You must push to save the babe. Do you understand?”

  Justin was sure she’d not respond, as incoherent as she’d been, but her eyes flew wide and locked on Dr. Bancroft’s face. “Yes,” she said in a voice so full of determination that it filled Justin with hope.

  He squeezed Arabella’s hand, and she slowly turned her head toward him. “Arabella, I’m sorry. I was stupid. So stupid. Can you forgive me?”

  She opened her mouth and let out a scream that pierced his heart with a shaft of terror.

  Hours later, Arabella’s screams had died to whimpers and then silence. She lay listless on the bed, her gown soaked with sweat and blood, despite the nurse’s best effort to clean her up. Justin’s own shirt was drenched with the sweat of fear. He ran a hand through his wife’s matted hair while Dr. Bancroft tried once again to get her to push. “One last time, my dear. I can see the crown of the head now.”

  Justin’s breath froze in his lungs when Arabella didn’t respond at all.

  Dr. Bancroft rose with a curse and motioned for Justin to rise. They met at the foot of the bed. “She is spent, and I fear has nothing left to give. I can try to pull the babe out, but it is much safer for her to push the child out. Can you think of anything you could say to her that might reach her?”

  Justin started to shake his head, and then he froze. He rushed back to Arabella’s side and pressed his lips to her ear. “I love you, Arabella. I love you, do you hear me? Darling, I love you. Je t’aime. And I love you in Russian, my darling. я люблю тебя. And Greek. Σε αγαπώ. Darling, I will say it in every language spoken if you will just push one more time.”

  He held his breath, waiting, hoping, and when a smile flitted at her lips and her eyes opened and locked with his, his heart filled with such joy that he cried out. She mouthed, I love you, too, and then pushed as he held her hand and whispered over and over, “I love you.”

  Arabella watched with a smile from her bed as Audrey walked back and forth and sung softly to Jonathan, the Marquess of Steele, the most perfect child ever born. Audrey paused and turned to her. “He has his father’s eyes.”

  Arabella nodded. “But he has my nose. See how straight it is?”

  Justin entered the room at that moment, carrying a small black box in his hands. He strolled over to Arabella, leaned over her, and kissed her. He went to Audrey, shoved the box in his coat pocket, and held out his hands. “My son, if you please.”

  She smiled and handed Justin the sleeping baby. Arabella’s heart tugged as Justin cradled Jonathan snug against his chest and cooed to their son with unrepentant pleasure.

  Audrey chuckled. “This is something I never thought I’d see.”

  Justin looked up and grinned, then turned his eyes to Arabella. Her breath caught in her lungs, and she wondered for the thousandth time if she would ever derive less pleasure from seeing Justin’s love for her in his eyes. She was certain she would not.

  He moved silently toward her and sat by her side, the bed dipping with his weight. But he turned toward Audrey. “You should get used to seeing me thus, because I intend to have as many children as my wife will give me.”

  “Right now, that would be one,” Arabella murmured good-naturedly. “But it’s only been three days. Give me a few weeks to recover totally, and I’m sure the number will go up.”

  “Well then, darling,” Audrey said, “I better go now and let you rest so you can give your husband a nursery filled with joyous bundles.”

  After they said their good-byes to Audrey, Justin laid a still-sleeping Jonathan beside Arabella and then reached into his pocket, withdrew the box, and handed it to her.

  “What is this?” she asked, staring at the box.

  “Open it, my love.” She smiled at the term of endearment he’d taken to using. Hearing love from his lips would never grow old, either.

  She opened the box and gasped with delight at the thin gold chain with a perfect, rather large, gold heart attached to it. Carefully, she picked up the chain, the heart dangling in the air between her and Justin.

  “Turn it over,” he directed.

  She did, and as she read the inscription silently, Justin read it aloud. “My heart for my love.”

  She blinked back tears of happiness as she handed him the chain. “Will you put it on me?”

  He nodded, did so, and then kissed her. When he drew back, she pressed her fingers to the golden heart. “Your heart and your love are always safe with me,” she said.

  “As yours are with me, my love. As yours are with me.”

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