Bound by Love

by Edith Layton

  “But I can’t always count on you to do the right thing!” Fiona cut in to say jokingly as she came up to them. She pouted prettily. “You promised you’d see me to my room yourself, my lord, and I am so exhausted, and yet still waiting—so patiently.”

  He laughed. “Forgive me,” he said to Fiona. “You’re right. A promise is a promise. This way, if you please, my lady.” He offered her his arm, and she put her hand on it and gazed up into his eyes. He bowed absently to Della, as though he’d forgotten who the pretty little stranger he’d been talking to was, and walked off with Fiona.

  This was what I stayed for, isn’t it? Della asked herself savagely. She’d have to see it and see it again, and then maybe she’d be free. But it would take a long time to kill the dream, she thought with dull sorrow as she watched that tall, straight figure go up the stairs with Fiona. It had been such a wonderful dream, and so near, although so far. She told herself she had to be rid of it by the time she herself was far away, and so she’d watch, and hurt, and watch some more. Even the stupidest, lowliest animal eventually removed itself from something that hurt; she could only hope she’d eventually be able to do the same.

  *

  Justin kept Della laughing all through dinner. Her face was lit with laughter as she jested with him, and it suited her looks perfectly. Hers was a face made for laughter, Jared thought. He hadn’t seen her looking so happy in a long while. He’d missed her before she came to England, but now he realized that since she’d arrived, he’d missed seeing her in such high spirits.

  Fiona hung on Jared’s every word, but he had few of them because he was busy watching Della laugh and busy listening to what Justin was saying. He had never known his brother could be so clever. He’d remembered an adoring boy, had met a charming man, but he’d never guessed Justin could be so amazingly funny. Justin’s humor was dry and sly, and when Jared wasn’t laughing, he found himself wondering if he too would have grown up with such a gift if his life hadn’t taken him down such dark roads.

  Justin was so successful in his attempts to make Della laugh that even Fiona’s father, who had joined them at the hall with his wife, seemed to be genuinely smiling at him. That was such an unusual sight that it made Jared realize he’d never seen the man look at Justin with favor—or, come to think of it, look at him very much at all—at least since he’d arrived to take back the title of earl. It couldn’t always have been that way. That thought, and its natural conclusions, sobered Jared so much that even Justin’s jokes couldn’t distract him.

  Everyone decided bedtime would be early tonight because of their long journey. The company parted after dinner, instead of sitting together talking, singing, or playing cards, as they would usually do in the countryside.

  “Thank you for coming,” Jared told the baron as he said good night to him and his wife. “I couldn’t let Della stay alone in London, and I’m grateful you’ve come to stay until her father returns. I hope it hasn’t inconvenienced you too much.”

  The baron smiled. “My dear Alveston, don’t stand on ceremony with us. We are at your disposal. Fiona’s wishes are always paramount with us. And yours, second only to hers.”

  Some perversity made Jared blurt, “She’s number one and I’m two? High honor, indeed, sir. But where does my brother fit in?”

  “Ah. Justin…” the baron said. “He knows where he stands with us—like a son, of course, so much part of our family that it doesn’t require thinking about. So Fiona has always thought of him, too, which is not always wonderful, if you take my meaning.”

  Jared thought he did, but said nothing.

  After a pause, the baron went on smoothly, “You ought to have seen them as children, fighting all the time, like littermates. Or perhaps you ought not have.… Good night, then.”

  Jared looked after the couple after they left him. The baron’s comments made him think, and he was sure it was exactly what the baron wanted. But he didn’t like being made to think about what he’d been trying to ignore. He finally went upstairs himself.

  He was halfway up the long, curving stairway when he glanced up and saw Fiona looking down at him. He paused, hand on the rail, wondering why she waited there.

  “Jared?” she asked in a trembling whisper.

  He quickly joined her under the high dome at the top of the stairs.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, taking her cold hands in his.

  “Just what I was going to ask you! You were so glum tonight. Is it anything I said?”

  “Glum?”

  “Well, not attentive, I suppose,” she said with a pretty shrug of her pale shoulders. “I know I’m spoiled and conceited and terribly vain, and I prattle like a magpie, but tonight you didn’t even pretend to listen. Have I offended?”

  Her eyes searched his. She stood bathed in the light of the full moon that shone down through the great dome. Those worried eyes were the only dark things in her face, because the moonlight had blanched the rest of her to a slight, white figure. She usually looked beautiful all in white, but, oddly, she wasn’t flattered by the strange illumination. It was because she was all pastels to begin with, and so the light leached the last of her color from her, Jared thought absently. He remembered then that he had met another girl here once, in this exact spot, but she had glowed in the moonlight—probably because Della was more vivid to begin with, he thought. Mentally shaking himself, he firmly dismissed the thought and concentrated on the beautiful vision before him.

  The light might not become her, but she did look fragile and fair as she stood before him. Her face might be indistinct, but he could clearly see her slender form, her smooth white shoulders, and the tops of her white breasts. She looked like a porcelain princess. Jared felt more than flattered; he was humbled by the incredible fact that this perfect lady sought his approval. His approval! He, the man whose ragged back still bore the shameful evidence of his debasement; he, who had been a boy who would have been considered too lowly to hold this lady’s cloak for her.

  Her hands shook in his. He leaned closer to inhale the sweet, elusive floral fragrance of her.

  “I couldn’t go to sleep for worrying,” she whispered. “I asked Father, and he said I ought not go to sleep, then. He said I should seek you out and ask you about it right now.”

  Jared let go of her hands and stepped back. “Did he?” he asked.

  “Yes. So what have I done to offend?” she asked again, stepping nearer to close the narrow space between them and staring up into his eyes.

  She was slight, but not a small woman. He realized he could easily bend his head to touch that delightfully curved mouth. He wondered if it would taste as sweet and fresh as he suspected it might, and if it would tremble beneath his. He wondered if those alabaster breasts would rise to his hand, the way a real woman’s would. He began to bend to her, and the light fell from the sky to show him that she’d closed her eyes and tipped that pretty mouth up to his.

  And then, as though her shuttering those eyes had suddenly broken some strange midnight spell, he caught himself.

  His head jerked back as his thoughts became clear. This wouldn’t be like holding that other girl in the moonlight; this could never be written off as midnight madness. This would set into motion a trail of events too profound to stop. This girl was not an adorable little friend who was like a sister to him—this was his brother’s fiancée!

  …who could be his. He’d been reminded of that so often lately that he couldn’t forget it now, even in the sweetly scented, maddening moonlight. But now he could think of nothing except that this would be more than an embrace—it would be a commitment.…

  …and a betrayal, he reminded himself, and grew cold.

  He stepped back. “You said nothing to offend me,” he said abruptly. “I was only distracted by all the things I know I have to do now that I’m back here. Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and he read confusion and disappointment in their depths before she laughed aga
in. “Why, what a goose I’ve been,” she said so lightly he wondered if he’d imagined her unspoken invitation a minute before. “Good night. See you in the morning, my lord.”

  He watched her step off into the shadows and fade into the darkness of the upper hall. He waited where he was until he heard her door close—a little too firmly—behind her.

  Now he was too confused to sleep, but he wasn’t in the mood either to pace his room while every thought he wanted to escape paraded through his weary brain. He had too many dangerous things to think about tonight, about loyalty and love, obligation and duty, and choices—too many choices.

  He could take Fiona as wife—everyone said it, including her fiancé, his own brother. But what kind of a man takes his brother’s woman—and his title, his position, and his place in life along with it? How would he break the news?

  Thank you, brother; I’ll have the house and the name and the girl, and you may take the kitchen cat and your old britches. I’ll take everything else—after all, it’s all my birthright. He gave a shudder of self-loathing.

  To hell with dreams come true! he thought. Or dreams of any kind. Tonight, he decided, he’d drink until he had no room for thoughts and no choice but to sleep.

  He wished Alfred hadn’t gone. He wished Della hadn’t already gone up to bed. For a moment, he considered tapping on her door. She was always understanding, always diverting. He wished she’d been the one he’d met again in the moonlight. But then he might be even more confused, he thought as he hurried back down the stairs.

  The house was too quiet and his thoughts were too loud. He headed for the library, where he knew Justin kept a sideboard stocked with liquor. Once there, he paused, his hand on the door, because he heard laughter within—familiar laughter.

  It was Della’s laugh, those free, husky bell tones he’d know anywhere, quickly stifled to burbling giggles. It was the way she had laughed at home when they’d been up and talking far into the night while Alfred slept, the way she’d hushed her secret glee when he’d come home late from a trip and they talked about his experiences together, the way she’d laughed with him when they didn’t want to rouse the rest of the household. But tonight it was accompanied by Justin’s deep, muted laughter.

  Jared’s head tilted to the side as he listened to them, and a smile grew on his face. They thought they were the only ones awake in the whole house, in the whole dreaming world. He knew what a childish, wonderful feeling that could be. What fun it would be if he went in and joined them. Secrets in the night were always fun—like the nighttime raid on the kitchens to finish off the last of the pie that he’d made with Justin, a raid filled with hushed giggles and stubbed toes, a raid he remembered making as a boy. Like lying awake, reading a pamphlet by the light of a stolen candle carefully shielded under the covers when the master thought you were sleeping, your heart beating wildly at every false footstep heard, trembling lest the blankets catch fire, as he remembered doing when he’d been that other boy.… His hand dropped from the door.

  He listened to them laughing, and his mouth drew into a thin, hard line. Justin had obviously come to terms with his losses and had maybe found an unexpected gain. So why should his brother mind? But somehow, he did.

  Jared turned from the door and went up the stairs again, appalled and alone, wondering what sort of monster he was that he wanted everything his brother had, wondering why he’d come back, if it wasn’t for everything that was happening now. Everything was spinning out of control, and yet going down every preordained path of his every dream, just as he’d always wanted. Just exactly as he’d always thought he’d wanted.

  Chapter 14

  A word,” Justin said, and Fiona turned.

  “Yes?”

  There had been a time, and not so long ago, he thought, when he would have gotten more than a politely interested yes from his fiancée when he first saw her in the morning—a smile or a pleasant word, at least. He didn’t expect a kiss—their relationship was not, after all, that of young lovers; it never had been. That was something he’d hoped they’d grow into. But that never looked further from him than it did this morning.

  “I wondered,” he said, from where he stood in the hall in front of the dining room, where he’d intercepted her on her way to breakfast, “if you would care to share your plans for today with me? I understand you’re going riding with my brother. Or so, at least, your further tells me. And that, my dear,” he said with more emphasis, “is the only problem I have with it, I think.”

  “Indeed?” she asked, paying studious attention to brushing some nonexistent lint from her skirt.

  “Fiona,” he said, suddenly serious. “Let’s have done with this nonsense. We’ve known each other too long to play games. Do you wish to be free of me?”

  She didn’t answer right away, which was answer enough for him. He nodded to himself, but she didn’t see it. She was still too busy avoiding his eyes to see that, or his sudden pallor, or the convulsive way his throat moved as he swallowed.

  “I hardly know what to say…” she began.

  “You needn’t,” he said quickly. “So be it,” he went on in a determinedly normal tone of voice. “I suppose there’s nothing more to say, is there? Or do, for that matter. There’s not even any need to put a notice about it in the papers, or to tell the vicar, either, because we never really set a date or made an announcement, did we? There was never any hurry to do what we both knew we were going to do.”

  “What we had to do,” she said quickly, glancing up at him, and then, as quickly, looking down again.

  “Ah yes,” he said, going very still.

  “We will have to say something to the neighbors, I suppose,” she said, still keeping her eyes averted, “but I think we can trust my father to do that.”

  “Yes. Of that, I’m very sure,” he said in agreement. “Fiona,” he said softly, and there was something in his voice that made her look up into his cool blue gaze. “I wish you well; I really do, you know. Otherwise, I’d never let you go so easily, I think. But I can’t hold what I never had, and shouldn’t, no matter how I feel about you. Whatever happens, I don’t think we can or should ever put what we had back together again. If nothing else, this has shown us we had nothing in the first place. So please understand I say what I do only out of concern for you—and him, because I care deeply for you both.” Quietly, he added, “Fiona, be sure of what you want this time. But please, look at more than just what you want, too.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” she said quickly.

  He felt odd, not so much lost or grieving just yet as relieved that it was finally out in the open, said and over and done. Over and done? He frowned. She stood there hesitantly before him, so lovely in her new amber-gold gown, so young and pretty—and so very uncomfortable with him.

  A strange place for such a momentous decision, he found himself thinking as he looked down at her downcast eyes. A sunny morning in the heart of my own beautiful house—my brother’s beautiful house, he corrected himself, but home nevertheless, with the smell of bacon thick in the air around us. Shouldn’t there be tempests, howling wolves, something cataclysmic to signal such a time, the death of my future? Maybe not, he decided. Maybe this was no different than the ending of any other dream, and so ended the way all dreams did, when a man opened his eyes and left the most fantastic places to awake to an ordinary morning.

  Fiona’s gown was embroidered with little leaves. She thought she’d counted every one as he’d talked, but she couldn’t remember how many she’d counted now. He looked so lost and hurt. She felt so bad, and yet good. She was free at last—free for the first time in her life, she realized. But not for very long, if she guessed right. Her father had made it very clear what he wanted, and, as usual, she very much agreed. Still, as he’d told her with a conspiratorial grin, this time it was her choice. And no matter how bad she felt for Justin, and how uncomfortable it was for herself, it was a heady feeling to know in this instant that, for this moment, she was as free as
any young woman, with a new future. And it was even more dizzying to think that her future finally was her own to decide.

  “I’m very sure,” she said again, not really sure of what she said or of anything else except for the dazzling new notion that she was free. “I know what I want. And I hope you find what you want, Justin, I do,” she blurted, “because you deserve it. You truly do, you know.” She smiled up at him as though he were just any handsome young admirer of hers.

  But although she had admirers to spare, she had never had any other real suitors, because she’d been promised to one man since birth—this man. She’d never looked at him as an admirer, and she supposed he’d never looked at her that way, either. Why court someone who was yours from the start? But oh, she loved being courted! Even now, she wasn’t sure how Justin really felt about her, although he’d wanted to honor their bargain.

  She gazed at him with new eyes. He was very handsome indeed, she thought, with his hair still damp from his morning toilette and his face so unusually solemn. The oddest thing was that now that he wasn’t promised to her anymore, he looked better to her than he ever had before.

  He offered her his arm to lead her into breakfast. She was relieved; trust Justin to be civilized about it. He wasn’t angry with her—they’d always be friends, and now she could get on with her life. She felt a great weight lifted from her mind. She put her hand on his arm and walked with him, prattling merrily about the fineness of the day. She stopped only when they got into the room and saw the table laid, the sideboard filled with plates of breakfast foods, the footmen hovering over them, but no one else there but her parents and Della.

  *

  She was so beautiful. And such a lady. He ached for her to understand. He pleaded with her.

  “Oh, please don’t go—please don’t,” he cried.