He shook his head, feeling the warmth return to his face. “No. That is to say . . . you’re mistaken. It cannot be.”
“Oh. It can be. It is. I’m having our child.”
“You can’t know that yet,” he insisted.
“Oh, I know. I’ve been in denial, wanting to prolong telling you, but I am.”
He angled his head, an uneasy feeling stirring in the pit of his stomach. Something in her face. In her voice. She never looked so hard before. So untouchable.
She exhaled, a brittle smile playing about her mouth. “I’m already with child,” she repeated.
“You can’t be. I didn’t . . .”
“Yes, well, that apparently didn’t work.”
He grabbed her by the arms and gave her a gentle shake. “You are certain?”
“Fairly certain. I’m late . . .” She sighed. “I’m never late.”
He dropped his hands from her and took a step back. Then another one.
The idea of having a child . . . being a father . . .
He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He had long rejected it as a choice or a possibility. He could not fathom it.
“This . . .” He couldn’t think what to say. How to react. It had only been two weeks since that night. She could be mistaken. “So you are not absolutely positive.”
She stared at him, the light fading from her eyes. A candle snuffed out, her brown eyes gazed flatly at him. “You can always hope.”
She turned then and continued to her room. She moved like she was tired. A tired, beaten woman. Not the vibrant lover who had moved over him just moments ago.
He opened his mouth to call out to her but no sound escaped. Nor could he force his legs to move to go after her. He watched her disappear inside her chamber. And still he stood in the center of the corridor.
The ground was no longer solid beneath his feet. Everything he ever thought he knew. Gone.
Aurelia carried his child. He was going to be a father. With a curse, he charged into his bedchamber and headed for the decanter of whiskey. He didn’t bother with a glass.
Chapter 24
The following morning, Aurelia didn’t wait for Cecily before she was up. Awake, dressed, and already packed.
The moment she entered her bedchamber last night, she had flung herself on the bed and had a long, bitter cry.
She had wept for herself. She wept for her unborn child. And she wept for Max. Because he would never allow himself the love she or this child could give him. One look at his face and she knew. He was horrified. He could not hide it. He could not pretend otherwise.
In a short time she had become his worst nightmare. Both his wife and the mother of his child. Neither two things he ever wanted.
Oh, she loved him. She knew it now. She doubted she had ever stopped. Not since she was nine. She slapped a rogue tear trailing down her cheek. Apparently she had not spent all her tears yet. But he wouldn’t let himself love or be loved. And she wouldn’t stay here, taking whatever scraps he tossed at her. She certainly couldn’t allow her child to feel that way. Ignored. Neglected. Occasionally acknowledged with just enough attention for he or she to know what she was missing.
Cecily entered the room, her eyes widening when she took in the packed trunk. “What’s happening?”
“I’m going to Scotland. To Aunt Daphne. Mama will be venturing there soon. I’m just departing sooner to get settled in,” she said with forced brightness.
“Very well,” Cecily said slowly. “Discounting the fact that you are married now and might be expected to reside with your husband, I thought you didn’t want to live with your Aunt Daphne.”
Aurelia shrugged. “I thought it would be lonely.” And boring. But then, she wouldn’t mind a little tedium. She’d endured enough excitement and upheaval. She stroked her stomach as though she could already feel the child growing there. “I won’t be lonely. I’ll have Aunt Daphne, Mama, the baby . . .” Her gaze locked on Cecily. “And you. I hope I’ll have you.”
Cecily hesitated, and it occurred to Aurelia that perhaps she had plans of her own that did not include rusticating in an obscure corner of Scotland. Then her friend smiled. “Of course. Of course I’ll go with you.”
They embraced. “Now,” Cecily said, “you look about finished here. I’ll send a footman for the trunk and then go pack my things.” She started to leave, but hesitated at the door. “Have you told your husband yet? Does he know you’re leaving?”
Aurelia shook her head. “I’ll leave a note.”
Cecily looked uncertain. “Perhaps you should talk. There could be a chance—”
“No. There’s no chance. He doesn’t want this child.” Again her hand went to her stomach. The prospect of the baby saved her from total bleakness. “And he never wanted me.”
Her heart was broken, but it had not stopped beating. She was not like Max, unable to love. She would love this baby enough for both of them. She had to.
Max woke with a raging headache. The afternoon sunlight streaming into the room felt like knives in his eyeballs. It only took a few moments for the events of the night before to flood over him, and then he knew he deserved every bit of the agony he was experiencing.
Had he actually reacted like such a bloody bastard when Aurelia told him she was increasing? She had to be frightened, dreading the moment she told him. She knew he didn’t want children. He had made that abundantly clear. And then he had gone and acted like he’d been dealt a death blow.
He rose, pressing the base of his palm to one eye and then the other as pain spiked through his skull. He had to see Aurelia. He had to apologize.
He staggered to his feet and made his way to the basin. Splashing water on his face, he studied his red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. He had to apologize and tell her . . .
He looked at himself, wondering if this was the man he wanted to be. Someone who drank himself into a stupor because he’d been given news that would overjoy most husbands. Gazing at himself, he saw a weak man in the mirror.
Weak like his father.
Weak like the man he swore he would never become.
“Hell.” He pushed himself up from the basin, ready to find his wife. Ready to hold her and tell her he was going to be a good father.
He knocked once before opening the door to her chamber. She wasn’t there, which wasn’t so unusual for the middle of the day. He started to turn away when he noticed the doors to her armoire wide-open. He inched forward, his stomach tightening. It was empty. No clothes.
His gaze swung around the room, his stomach now pitching violently. He caught sight of the dressing table. It, too, was clear of items. No brush or perfumes. There was nothing left of her here.
She was gone.
They had been traveling most of the morning when it started to rain. Wind whistled. The normal gentle rocking of the carriage soon grew uneven and jerky. Aurelia began to feel queasy. Typically, her stomach wasn’t so sensitive. She knew the cause could be her condition, but she suspected it had more to do with the turbulence of her feelings.
She was conflicted. As much as she believed she needed to leave for her sake—and her unborn child—it left her slightly ill. She thought of Max’s face when he learned she left. She imagined the shock followed swiftly by tears of regret. She snorted. It was a ridiculous image. Max wallowing in grief because of her was as likely as him loving her.
“Are you all right?” Cecily asked when she noticed her holding her stomach.
Aurelia nodded. “Just a little bumpy.”
“It’s the wind.” She nodded, her gaze skimming the walls of the carriage pensively. “Perhaps we should signal the driver to stop?”
“We’re still a distance from the next town. Even if we stop we’ll still be buffeted with wind and rain,” she reasoned.
The wind howled shrilly then, lifting over the sound of rain. Cecily’s eyes rounded and she angled her head, gazing at Aurelia in a way that seemed to say, Are you certain of that?
“S
urely the driver would stop if it’s too dangerous to continue on.” A thin thread of doubt hung to her words.
They held silent for a moment, swaying where they sat on the squabs. The carriage gave a little lurch and Aurelia grasped the strap that hung near her head to keep her balance. She sent Cecily a nervous smile she had intended to be reassuring.
“Perhaps we could find a crofter’s cottage and—” Cecily’s suggestion was cut off as a sudden howl punched through the steady beat of rain.
A thunderous crack followed, reminiscent of bone cracking. When she was a girl, Will had fallen from a tree and broken his arm. She remembered the terrible snapping sound of the bone breaking in that spilt second. This was like that. Ugly and sharp. Only louder.
The carriage slammed into a wall. At least that was how it felt. She knew there were no walls on the north road, but the impact jarred her to the teeth. Her head snapped on her neck as the carriage heaved sideways. She and Cecily tumbled from their seats in a flurry of skirts and tangling limbs. Fear lodged in her throat. Everything slowed to a grinding crawl as they were tossed around the inside of the carriage like marbles in a box. Her chest clenched. Squeezed. Air ceased to flow. Pain scraped her elbow and her mouth opened wide.
A scream reverberated in her ears. Shrill and as endless as the rolling carriage.
It registered dimly. As though she were someone else, somewhere else. Looking down at the scene from afar.
However, the ringing scream was her own.
Chapter 25
She hadn’t bothered to cover her tracks. She took one of his coachmen and carriages. Which only indicated to him that she didn’t think he would care. She didn’t think he would give pursuit.
She was wrong.
Max rejected taking a carriage himself, knowing he would catch up with her faster on horseback. An hour after departing, with London well behind him, it started to rain. A steady downpour that soon soaked him to the bone.
He didn’t let the rain stop him. If anything, it would slow her down. He knew she couldn’t be far ahead. He pushed himself harder through the deluge. Fortunately there was no lightning, so he didn’t have to concern himself with that danger.
Time crawled. His thoughts spun to the rhythm of rain and pounding hooves. She left him. She was his wife. She carried his child.
His life . . . his future was rushing away from him and it was his fault. He had to get it back. He had to get her back.
Aurelia. She’d always been there. Larger than life.
Desperation hummed inside him, an anxious energy that propelled him, coating his mouth with bitter panic.
He loved her. He was in love with her. He’d loved her for a long time, but recently that love had changed, grown into something so fierce and consuming. Elation swelled inside him. Fear was there, coupled with the memory of his family—his father, but for the first time the prospect did not cripple him.
Loss was a part of life. An undeniable absolute. There was no escaping it. Only learning to accept the inevitability of it—and live well and fully in the interim—that was reaching contentment and happiness. Finding someone, joy, love . . . that was never a guarantee. But he had found it. He’d found it with Aurelia. And he turned his back on it. On her.
Never again. No more.
He nudged his heels and urged his mount faster.
The wind howled. Several branches snapped off trees and littered the road. He stayed alert, watching the ground ahead of him, making sure his mount avoided some of the bigger branches that could trip him. He was so busy studying the ground immediately before him that he wasn’t looking into the far distance. Not until he heard the wild whinny of a horse.
His gaze snapped up, spotting the mangled corpse of a carriage ahead. He pulled up on his reins, everything in him clamping down hard as he recognized his own carriage. Bile surged in his throat. One of the doors was ripped from its moors, hanging askew. The sight of his family’s crest was a slap in the face. A haunting reminder. Nearly two decades ago another carriage bearing his family’s crest had met such a fate. His mother and sister had died inside it.
“Aurelia,” he choked, digging in his heels and launching his mount forward.
He jumped from the horse before it came to a full stop. “Aurelia!” He ran to the carriage and grabbed hold of the door, ducking his head to look within. Empty.
“My lord!”
He turned to face Thomas, the coachman. The man looked hale except for the gash in his forehead. Blood welled up from the wound before the rain washed it clean.
He grabbed the man by the shoulders. “Where is she? My wife—”
The coachman looked over his shoulder and gestured toward the tree line.
Max turned. The moment seemed to drag on into infinity as his eyes searched for his wife, dreading what he would find, what he would see. He begged to God to spare her and thereby him. To give him this.
To not take her, too.
Aurelia stared at Max through a gray wash of rain. She blinked, convinced her eyes deceived her. Why was he here?
He bounded across the distance and reached for her, his hands gentle on her arms, as though she were some fragile piece of crystal. “Are you hurt?”
He’d come for her.
She shook her head, trying to shake sense into herself. Her knee ached where she had banged it into the side paneling of the carriage, but she was otherwise unharmed. “I banged my knee and scraped my elbow . . . nothing more.” She motioned to Cecily where she sat at the base of the tree. “Cecily hurt her ankle.”
Cecily waved her hand. “It’s nothing.”
Before Aurelia could speak again, Max scooped her up in his arms and lowered her to the ground beneath the tree. They had taken shelter under it, the thick canopy of branches and leaves blocking most of the rain.
Her hand fluttered to his shoulder. “I’m not hurt, Max.”
He lifted her skirt and peered up her stocking-clad leg to examine her knee. A bruise was already beginning to form there. He tested it gingerly with his fingers.
“It’s not broken,” she assured him.
His stormy eyes settled back on her face, searching her features. “You’re fine?”
A smile tugged on her face. “Yes. I promise.”
His gaze dropped to her stomach, and his expression was both tender and terrified. “The babe?”
Her breath shuddered out of her. His hand moved to cover her stomach then and she jerked at the contact. At the burning imprint of his hand on her. Something passed over his eyes that looked very close to pain.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head, his voice ripe with misery. “I was afraid to love you . . . to love this baby, but it’s too late for that.” He paused, his gaze locking in on her face. Moisture brimmed there, and if she wasn’t sitting down she felt certain her legs would have given out.
He continued, “I do. I do love you . . . I love you.” His voice seemed to gain strength each time he uttered it. “I love you. I already love our baby and can’t wait to meet her.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only stare, trying to reconcile his words with what she knew. With what she thought she knew.
“You can’t love me,” she whispered. “Because . . . you can’t.”
“That’s what I always thought. It’s what I wanted you to think. But how—” His voice choked on a sob. He stopped and swallowed, his rain-damp throat working. “How could I not fall in love with you?” He brought his other hand to cup her cheek, pushing back wet snarls of her hair. “Say you love me. Say you’ll come home with me. That we will be a family.”
She moistened her lips, the lump in her throat blocking her words. “Max . . .”
He nodded, one hand still caressing her stomach, the other holding her face.
“How do you know we’re having a girl?”
He laughed roughly, throwing back his head. “Wishful thinking. A little girl just like you . . . The world would be so lucky to have her.”
&nb
sp; “Lucky indeed,” Cecily chimed in.
Max flashed her a grin before looking back at Aurelia. His grin faded as his eyes searched her face, his expression turning grave, and she realized she had not said anything in response to his declaration.
She moistened her lips. “I’ve loved you, Maxim Alexander Chandler,” she said, “fourth Viscount of Camden, Max to your familiars, since the first moment I clapped eyes on you.”
“And then you hated me,” he reminded her with a wry twist to his lips.
“No. I was just waiting for this. Waiting for you . . . for me. For the both of us to get to this point. To get it right.”
His chest lifted on a deep breath. “I’m here now, Aurelia.”
She crushed her mouth to his, kissing him deeply, her hands curling around his shoulders.
She was here, too.
Epilogue
Max opened the door of his bedchamber and fell back against the hard length of the door with a gust of breath. He’d been in meetings all morning with his man of affairs and barrister regarding a new investment prospect. Typically, before his marriage, the prospect would have diverted him, but he’d been anxious to wrap up the meeting and return home. To Aurelia.
His gaze scanned the chamber for her. Now he was free, and only one thing weighed on his mind. Or to be more accurate, only one thing burned through his blood like scalded cinders.
He tugged the cravat loose from around his neck as his gaze landed on his wife where she sat before the dressing table. Her gaze lifted and collided with his in the mirror. Color flooded her cheeks. He loved that. Loved that she still blushed when their eyes met. He loved that he still had the ability to make the color rush to her face.
Her lush mouth curved into a slow smile as he took his time assessing her. It was almost shy, beguiling, and that made the skin tighten at the back of his neck. She still had this effect on him. Even after months of marriage. After countless days and nights together where they had each loved and explored each other with unhurried leisure, using their hearts alongside their bodies, he knew it would never be any other way between them.
All The Ways To Ruin A Rogue (The Debutante Files Book 2) Page 22
