Furious, Harry shook his head. “Father, that is not the point. Gus already blames herself. She’s nearly made herself ill over it, yet while she’s still recovering from childbed, you make barbarously unkind comments that you know will only hurt her.”
“There are times when the truth can hurt,” Father said calmly, and whether it was the sentiment, or that calmness, it was more than enough for Harry. Without another word, he turned on his heel, and left, slamming the door.
Geoffrey began to go after him, but Father stopped him.
“Stay, Geoffrey,” he said. “Please. It’s you I wish to address, anyway. Harry will be back when his temper cools, and he can once again see reason.”
“I am not so certain,” Geoffrey said, but he did turn back. Even now he could not resist the rare moment when Father preferred his company to Harry’s. Perhaps Father had already learned somehow of his Parliamentary ambitions; it was possible, given Father’s vast network at Court. “He does not like to see Gus suffer. None of us do.”
“Oh, Augusta understands,” Father said with a cavalier wave of his hand. “She’s stronger than the lot of you. But it’s your wife who concerns me now, Geoffrey. Tell me of the fair Serena. Does she make you happy?”
“More than I can say,” Geoffrey said, unable to keep the foolish grin from his face. So it was Serena, not politics, certainly a far easier topic for him. “I know that the circumstances of our marriage might not have been what either you or her grandfather had planned, but I cannot imagine another woman as my wife, and I dare to say she feels the same.”
“I am glad of it,” Father said, watching him closely. “She has given you no cause for concern? No questions, no worries?”
Geoffrey frowned, perplexed. “That’s a damned strange thing to ask, Father.”
“Considering her circumstances before she came to London, I find it perfectly reasonable,” Father said. “Even Allwyn himself seemed vague about her early life. Questions are seldom asked when the lady can insulate her past with a sizable fortune, but now that she has wed into our family, there has been considerable talk about town.”
Geoffrey’s frown deepened. Keeping to themselves as they had been, he and Serena hadn’t heard any of this—which for her sake was just as well.
“No one dares speak this tattle to your face, Father, do they?”
“Oh, no,” Father said. “No one would. Still, I hear things.”
He added a vague, encompassing wave of one hand, the lace cuffs of his shirt falling back from his wrist. Geoffrey couldn’t begin to comprehend the extent of Father’s channels through Court and the rest of London; one way or another, there was little that escaped Father’s knowledge.
“The usual tattle, of course,” he continued. “Entirely unfounded, I am sure, and born more of envy and malice than of fact, yet it cannot be entirely ignored. So I must ask again: has she given you any reason for uncertainties?”
Carefully Geoffrey considered how much he could say to answer his father’s doubts, yet honor Serena’s request for privacy.
“She has confided in me certain events from her childhood that were not the experiences of an ordinary English lady,” he said finally. “Experiences no lady should be compelled to bear, and yet, because of her courage, she survived them. I cannot tell you more, or break my word and confidence to her.”
“Your word is safe,” Father said, tapping his finger lightly on the arm of the chair. “Suffice it to say that your wife must be an extraordinary woman. Harry and Augusta are considering you both as godparents to Lady Penelope.”
Geoffrey smiled, delighted by this show of acceptance by his family. “She would be honored, and so would I.”
Father grunted, an ominous sound of nonagreement. “I overheard her with the baby, whispering that Hindi mumbo jumbo,” he said bluntly. “Have you determined that she is in fact a Christian?”
“Of course she is,” Geoffrey said, his delight instantly dashed. “If that is the sort of rumor you have heard—”
“That’s one of them, yes,” Father admitted. “But I’ve only one question that deserves an answer from you, Geoffrey. Do you trust her?”
“Trust Serena?” he repeated, stunned. “Of course I trust her. I love her.”
“Love and trust are not necessarily the same,” Father said, settling back in the chair. “One would wish it so in an idyllic world, but that is not the one in which we must live. Do you trust her to choose only the truth in what she says and does?”
It seemed a preposterous question to Geoffrey. When he remembered the nightmare on their wedding night, the abject terror on her face when she’d awakened after confronting her past: no, no one could pretend that. What she’d suffered, what she’d told him, was absolutely true. He loved her, and he trusted her.
“I do,” he said, aware of how the simple words were an echo of their wedding vows.
“Then permit me to ask another question,” Father said. “Were you aware when you pursued her that she had no brothers? Hardly a fortuitous omen for the family.”
That one was easy to answer. “Serena’s parents died young, before further children were born to them. The Indian climate is not healthy for the British.”
Father’s expression didn’t change. “Her declaration about preferring daughters was worrisome.”
“She spoke in the heat of the moment,” Geoffrey said. “She’ll have no more say than any other woman as to whether she bears boys or girls.”
Again Father paused, adding weight to his next question, the one that seemingly mattered most to him.
“Have you gotten her with child yet?”
Geoffrey sighed. After how Father had spoken to Gus earlier, he should have known this was coming. “We’ve only been wed two weeks, Father.”
“Two weeks of marriage, yes,” Father said shrewdly. “But as I recall, you’d, ah, tested those waters with the lady before that.”
“We didn’t,” Geoffrey said, defensive for Serena’s sake. “We hope for children, of course, but there is plenty of time for that.”
Father shook his head. “There isn’t,” he said sadly. “You are young, and believe that you have all the time in the world, but you don’t.”
Geoffrey had never seen this kind of sorrow on his father’s face before, or heard it in his voice.
“Life is fragile, Geoffrey,” he continued. “Your mother and I had hoped for a large family, and she was particularly eager for daughters. She would have adored the little mite that was born last night.”
“At least you had us, Father,” Geoffrey said, unsure of what else to say under the circumstances. Father never talked to him like this, and never about Mother, either.
“We did have you three,” he said. “Your mother couldn’t have been more proud of her boys, either, or loved you any more than she did. But Rivers was scarcely a year old when she first took ill, and though she lingered for several more years, there was never a question of more children.”
Father sighed heavily, his shoulders uncharacteristically hunched and his still-handsome face sagging. He looked suddenly much older, and with a shock Geoffrey realized for the first time that his father was not ageless, not invincible, the way he’d always seemed. Now Geoffrey understood why he so badly wanted a grandson, not just to preserve the dukedom, but as a continuation of himself.
Silently Geoffrey went to stand beside him, placing his hand on his father’s shoulder in empathy.
“Your mother was only twenty-five when she died, the same age that you are now,” he said, his voice low yet urgent. “She thought she had time, too, but she didn’t. No one knows what Fate has in store for us. Remember that when you kiss your pretty wife, Geoffrey. Remember that, and do not squander a moment.”
“You’re not happy,” Serena said softly as they sat together in the carriage on the way back to their house. “What did your father say to you to make you so?”
Geoffrey sighed. He’d taken off his hat so it wouldn’t bump against the s
quabs behind him, and now he tapped the brim lightly against his knee. “It was nothing beyond the usual,” he said, “and nothing that bears repeating. What of you and the ladies?”
Serena nodded, accepting his answer. She wouldn’t press, but it was clear that heated words had been exchanged among the three men. She guessed that the duke had continued to challenge Harry about an heir, and that Geoffrey had taken his brother’s side, the way he had earlier. It couldn’t have been enjoyable for any of them. When they’d finally returned to Gus’s bedchamber, they were all subdued and gloomy in the way that unresolved but spent anger turns sour, and she and Geoffrey had left soon afterward.
“It was the customary ladies’ chatter,” she said lightly, and it had been, too. “Celia praised Penelope lavishly, as if to make up for Brecon, and then spoke of her own daughters and grandchildren. Gus knew them all, of course, but I couldn’t begin to keep them straight. Then the nursery maid brought in Gus’s older daughter, Emily, who is a delightful little creature, though not pleased at becoming a big sister.”
“I should fancy not,” he said absently, paying more attention to the hat on his knee than to her. “If you do not object, I’m going to leave you at home, and then proceed to White’s. Harry has asked me to announce Penelope’s birth there for him.”
“Of course.” She smiled wistfully. “Do you realize that this will be the first time we’ve been apart since we wed?”
He took her hand, linking his fingers into hers. “It can’t be helped, my love,” he said. “White’s would collapse in an uproar if I tried to bring you inside those sainted doors.”
“I know better than to challenge White’s,” she said, looking down at their joined hands. “I shall simply have to use the time industriously so I don’t miss you. Perhaps I’ll begin reviewing the household accounts. It’s time I became a responsible wife to you.”
“I liked seeing you with Penelope in your arms,” he said, so completely ignoring what she’d been saying that she looked up, startled.
“I liked holding her,” she admitted, remembering the feel, the scent, the trust of little Penelope in the crook of her arm, her tiny fingers clutching at the air and her feet kicking through the layers of embroidered white linen in her own baby-dance. “Babies are so fresh and sweet and new, so full of promise. Most of the servants at Sundara Manōra had children, and Asha and I played with their babies the way English girls play with dolls.”
“It would please me greatly to have several of our own,” he said. “Soon, too.”
She caught her breath. “That’s what you were discussing with your father, isn’t it? Since poor Gus has failed him, he expects me to produce his precious male heir?”
“I won’t lie, Serena,” he said. “He did … inquire. But I wish for children for us, not for him, nor do I prefer boys to girls, so long as they are happy and healthy. I saw today how fine a mother you will be.”
She pulled her hand free of his, and looked away, out the window to the shops they were passing. She should have known this was coming, no matter how much she’d pretended it wouldn’t.
“Serena, my love,” he said gently. “I don’t wish to distress you, but surely you must have considered the possibility of a child after these last weeks. No one could ever say we weren’t trying to conceive one, not after all the times we’ve—”
“I’m not a fool, Geoffrey,” she said, more sharply than she’d wished, and far more than he deserved. She instantly regretted it: he’d been so endlessly kind to her, and she loved him so much, that hurting him hurt her more. “Forgive me, but it’s so vastly difficult to explain. I—I have certain fears.”
“Is it childbirth?” he asked, with a gentle understanding that made her want to weep, because he didn’t understand at all. He couldn’t. “There is peril to the process, of course, and undeniable suffering, but most women believe the child is the lasting reward.”
She turned back, and caught him looking at her waist, as if he could already envision a child growing within her womb.
“Oh, Geoffrey,” she said softly. “I’m not very good at explaining this. To bear your child from the love we have would be the most wondrous thing imaginable. How could it not be?”
“It couldn’t,” he said, almost angrily, as if the very idea was impossible for him to accept. “I love you, Serena, and children, our children, will only make me love you more.”
“But what if it didn’t?” she asked, finally giving words to her greatest fear. “What if I was—was not the kind of mother you believe I will be to your child, and you stop loving me because of it?”
“I will not let that happen.” He thrust his fingers into the back of her hair above her nape, holding her steady as he kissed her roughly, possessively, silencing her doubts in a way that left her breathless with longing.
The carriage stopped before their house, and the footman opened the door. Even though Geoffrey intended to go on to the club, he stepped from the carriage and handed her down rather than let the footman do so. He led her to the steps, and at the door kissed her again, cradling her face in his hands and ignoring the butler, who held the door open and looked steadfastly past them.
“Why don’t you trust me, Jēsamina?” he asked in a harsh whisper, holding her face so she could not avoid his gaze. His eyes were very blue in the sunlight, and filled with anger and sorrow. “I love you and defend you, and desire you more than any man could. Why isn’t that enough to make you trust me?”
“I love you,” she whispered in return, all she could say as slow tears of misery trickled down her cheeks. “I love you, too, oh, so much!”
But it wasn’t enough. With a muttered oath, he released her, and climbed back into the carriage. He rapped on the roof for the driver to begin, and he didn’t look back.
She dashed away her tears with the heel of her hand, determined not to weep before the servants, and though her heart was breaking, she held her head as high as she could as she entered the hall.
He couldn’t know what he asked for when he demanded her trust. He couldn’t know that the child he longed for her to bear might not be a twin to little Penelope, rosy pink with a tuft of strawberry-blond hair, but more like the dark-eyed, copper-skinned babies she’d played with in the gardens of Sundara Manōra. He couldn’t know, and he wouldn’t, unless she gave birth to the undeniable proof of who she truly was. He promised he’d always defend her, always love her, but how could he after that?
“Lady Geoffrey, if you please,” said Colburn, the butler. “You have a visitor in the front parlor.”
“A visitor?” she asked, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
Colburn nodded. “Yes, Lady Geoffrey,” he said. “His lordship said he had important business with you, and that he would wait until your return. He was most insistent, Lady Geoffrey, and would not be deterred.”
“His lordship? Which lord has come calling on me?”
“Forgive me, Lady Geoffrey,” Colburn said with a chagrined small bow. “It is your uncle, Lord Radnor.”
CHAPTER
14
“My uncle is here? Now?” Serena asked with dismay. A day that had already deteriorated turned even worse. “Pray tell him that I’m indisposed, and that I cannot—”
“Don’t bother making any more excuses, Serena,” her uncle said, opening the parlor door himself. “I’ve seen you now, so no more pretending you’re not at home or not receiving. That’s a low trick to play on one of your family, who only wishes to pay you kind regards.”
She blushed furiously at being caught in the social fib, especially by him. She wondered if he had called before; she hadn’t bothered to take note of the visitors that had been turned away while she and Geoffrey had been alone together. He had in fact dressed for an important morning call; she’d never seen him in such elegant clothing, from a well-cut frock coat to the maroon-striped waistcoat. As much as she disliked him, she probably did owe him a few minutes of her time, especially after her gaffe.
She sighed, and joined him. “Would you care for tea, or perhaps coffee?”
“No,” Radnor said bluntly. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“Very well.” She nodded to the footman to close the door, and went to sit in the nearest armchair, her hands neatly folded in her lap. The front parlor was a prettily decorated room with bright yellow walls and a pleasing view of the square, intended for receiving and entertaining guests. With any other visitor, Serena would have enjoyed being here, pouring tea from a silver pot and playing the hospitable part of Geoffrey’s wife. But with her uncle, she felt on edge and on her guard, and could only pray he wouldn’t stay long.
“You’re looking well, Serena,” he said, openly appraising her. “Fitzroy’s bed agrees with you.”
She flushed again, from uneasiness, not shame. She sat on the edge of her chair, and she did not remove either her gloves or her hat, determined to keep the conversation as formal—and as brief—as possible.
“If that manner of comment is the extent of your business, Uncle,” she said, “then I must—”
“Oh, quit your fussing, niece,” he said, dropping heavily into the armchair opposite hers. He pulled the chair closer, scraping the legs across the floor, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, with a familiarity that she did not like. “Mind you recall that I supported your marriage to Fitzroy, and stood by you against Father. I took the part of you two lovebirds. Surely you remember that.”
“I do not recall it,” she said, her voice icy. “Not at all.”
He smiled, wolfishly showing too many teeth. “I think you do, Serena. You were so grateful for my assistance that you promised you’d speak to the Duke of Breconridge on my behalf.”
“No,” she said as firmly as she could. “No.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, chuckling. “I was pleased when your people told me you’d gone to see His Grace. I was sure you were keeping your end of our little bargain.”
A Sinful Deception Page 27
