A Risk Worth Taking

by Laura Landon

  “If there’s anything you want,” he said, his tone containing a softness she was not used to, “you have only to ask. If it’s within my power, I’ll give it to you.” He took a deep breath. “That is all I have to offer.”

  The warmth Anne saw in his eyes the moment before vanished. In its place was the hard, unyielding resolve she’d lived with since she’d spoken her vows.

  “Is it enough?” he asked.

  She looked at him and blinked twice to stop the wetness that blurred her vision. “I do not want for much, sir. Only—” She stopped.

  “Only what?”

  Only to be your wife.

  Only to be loved.

  How could she tell him? She could not say the words. It was like wishing for the moon.

  “Nothing, sir. I only want what you are willing to give. I will give you what I can, along with my hand to hold when you lose your way, as I promised.”

  He touched his fingers to her cheek, then his gaze moved to her mouth. A moan of anguish came from deep inside him and he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.

  His kiss was soft and reverent, filled with only a sampling of the emotions they both struggled to keep at bay whenever they were near each other. He kissed her again.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him. Yes, this is what she wanted there to be between them. This is what she needed to know was still there.

  When their kiss ended, she remained close to him.

  Griff brushed his fingers down her cheek as if he needed a reminder of what had transpired between them. Then he stepped away from her. His separation indicated that Julia still possessed a large part of his heart. He couldn’t allow himself to care for Anne like he’d cared for Julia. The love he still felt for his dead wife would not let him.

  He looked at her as if he’d read her mind, then walked toward a side door that led from the chapel.

  Bright sunlight blinded her when he opened the door, then the chapel darkened again when he closed the door behind him.

  She stood at the front of the chapel with her hands fisted at her sides. A quiet anger built within her. She was his wife now, the woman he should want at his side. How could he kiss her with such passion one minute and run away from her the next? It was as if a part of him refused to give himself over to her—as if a likeness of his dead wife flashed before him, and he regretted that he’d besmirched her memory.

  Anne followed him out the door and to the place where he stood. He anchored his hands against the wrought-iron fence as if he needed its support to help him carry the heavy load placed on his shoulders. The fence surrounded a small, private graveyard. She knew in an instant who was buried here.

  She looked down. Her gaze rested on two fairly new stones that marked two well-tended graves.

  “They’re not really here, you know.” His voice was filled with pain. “Their bodies were never recovered.”

  She wanted to reach out to him, to hold his hand and comfort him, but she could not.

  “I could lie and tell you I never loved her. That we had married young and afterward discovered we were not suited to each other, but that wouldn’t be true.”

  Anne thought she would be ill. Her stomach clenched and rolled. It took every ounce of her self-control to keep from running away from him and taking a carriage back to London.

  “I loved her very much, and she loved me. Together we had a son who was the joy of our lives. When I lost them, I thought I would die.” He lowered his head between his outstretched arms. “It’s my fault they are dead.”

  He took a deep breath that expanded his shoulders and chest. “Julia was terrified of sailing. I had some business to attend to in France and wanted her to go with me. She didn’t want to go, but I forced her. I promised her nothing would happen to her and Andrew. That I would take care of them. Then the storm came up.

  “The wind tossed our ship around like a toy boat. We crashed into some rocks off the coast of France and began taking on water. The captain ordered all the passengers to board the longboats.

  “Julia’s fear was irrational. She didn’t want to leave the cabin, but I made her. I took her and Andrew atop to wait to board one of the boats, then went below to help the other passengers. When I returned, Julia was gone. She’d taken Andrew back to our cabin.”

  Griff swiped his hand down his face. “I shouldn’t have left them. I knew she was too frightened to wait there without me.”

  “So you blame yourself because they died?” For the first time she understood the guilt he carried with him.

  “Who else is there to blame?”

  “No one, as long as you have a need to blame someone.”

  He shot her a confused look.

  “We often assign blame when something tragic happens that we can’t understand. I tried to blame you when Freddie was shot.”

  “But I was responsible—”

  “No. You were there, nothing more. Perhaps the bullet that killed him was intended for you. Perhaps it wasn’t. Maybe we will never know. But what good would have been served if you had died, too? Would Rebecca and I have been better off if you had died?”

  The muscles across his shoulders bunched and she heard his shaky sigh.

  “That’s what makes death so unbearable to some,” she continued. “Sometimes there is just no one to blame. I think you’d like to blame God, but you aren’t brave enough, so you blame yourself.”

  Anne turned away from his angry expression and looked down. The wrought-iron fence was lined with wildflowers of every color. She reached down and picked two bunches, then entered the gate and laid flowers on each grave.

  “There is no one there,” Griff repeated, his voice hoarse and riddled with emotion.

  “To me they are there. This is their final resting place. You are the one who cannot let them go. You’re the one who can’t accept their deaths and go on with your life.”

  “I can’t forget them,” he whispered, the agony and hurt inside him plain to hear.

  “I would never ask you to forget them. I only ask that you make room in your life for me, too.”

  Anne ran her fingers across Griff’s child’s headstone, and walked back out through the gate. She did not wait for him but headed down the path that would take her back to the manor. She refused to live the rest of her life in the shadow of a woman she had never met, a woman she could never replace.

  She swiped the back of her hand across the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She refused to give in to the hurt she felt.

  Her options were so few. He’d told her she only had to ask, and if it was within his power, he would give it to her. He would live to regret his words. She would not let him go until she had exactly what she wanted.

  If he could never love her, she would have the next best thing.

  Griff tossed and turned as sleep eluded him again. He knew tonight would be another sleepless night. He’d hurt her again today. For as much as he’d tried to make her first day tolerable, it had turned out to be a day riddled with painful truths and unpleasant memories. Now she knew. Knew about Julia. Knew he hadn’t protected Julia after he’d promised. Now Anne knew his promise to protect her was just as hollow.

  He lay on his back and crossed his arms beneath his head. He shouldn’t have kissed her.

  It was almost more than he could do not to go to her. It nearly took more willpower than he possessed not to walk through that door and into her room and take her. Bloody hell, but he wanted her. Wanted her with a desperation he did not think he would ever feel again. Most of all, he wanted her to know that she didn’t have to compete with Julia. Julia was his past. Anne was his future.

  He wanted to make a life with her, have a family with her. Watch the children they created grow. He wanted to laugh with her and talk with her and hold her through the night. He wanted to share his every thought with her and have her share her thoughts with him. And then…

  Griff remembered the sabotaged carriage and the movement
in the trees. He could not risk it. The attempts on his life proved it could all be taken away from him in the blink of an eye.

  He broke out in a cold sweat. He couldn’t stand to lose her, too. He couldn’t survive if he had to give up another child.

  Griff threw back the covers and jumped from his bed. The moment his feet hit the floor, his bedroom door opened. He turned to face her.

  Anne stood in the doorway, holding a flickering candle in her hand. Her face looked pale in the candlelight. “Anne? What’s wrong?”

  She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

  “Anne? What is it? Are you all right?”

  She looked at him with a determination he’d never seen before. She opened her mouth to speak, but the sight of his naked body obviously startled her. Her gaze moved over him.

  Griff muttered an oath and reached for his robe to cover himself. He pulled it closed in the front, but not before he caught her gaze riveted just below his waist. For a moment he thought she was going to run from the room, but she held her ground and took her first step closer.

  He tied the belt that held his robe secure and stepped close to her. When he was close enough, he took the flickering candle from her trembling hand and set it on the table beside the bed. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  She swallowed hard. “Did you mean it when you said if there was anything I wanted, and if it was within your power, I only had to ask and you would give it to me?”

  His heart fell to the pit of his stomach. A feeling of dread consumed him. “Yes.”

  “Then I have something I want. Something you have within your power to give me.”

  He turned and walked to the window. A cold chill washed over him. He was going to lose her. He’d been afraid that when she found out about Julia she would leave him. What woman wanted to stay with a husband who couldn’t protect his family? What woman wanted to stay with a man someone was trying to kill? What woman wanted to stay with a man she was not certain could survive another day without a drink? Why the hell would she want to risk spending her life with him? He wasn’t worth it.

  After a long while, he turned back to her. “Very well. What would you like from me?”

  She swallowed again. At least telling him she intended to leave him was not easy for her.

  “What is it, Anne? What would you like me to give you? An annulment?”

  Her eyes opened wide as if she couldn’t believe he had read her thoughts.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked on a hoarse whisper. “Do you want our marriage to be annulled?”

  “No, but I would understand if you did. I have not been much of a husband to you.”

  “You have not been any kind of a husband to me.”

  Her words stunned him. “No, I suppose I haven’t. You would certainly be within your rights to ask for an annulment.”

  “I do not wish to be separated from you.”

  He felt the air leave his lungs. “If not an annulment, what do you want?”

  The relief he felt was so great, he vowed she could ask for the moon and he would give it to her. He would give her anything if she would not leave him.

  He looked into her eyes and saw the determination. “What is it, Anne? What do you want?”

  “A child. I want to have a child.”

  Griff caught himself on the edge of his bedside table. She’d just asked for more than the moon.

  Chapter 25

  His mouth dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

  Anne saw his horrified look but didn’t give him time to voice his refusal. She couldn’t back down. Her future rested on this moment. “I know you didn’t want to marry me. That you weren’t ready to take another wife, but it’s too late to undo what has been done.” A cold chill washed over her. “Unless you want an annulment.” She looked into his eyes, praying she would see his true feelings. “It is not too late. Our marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

  “No, I don’t want an annulment.”

  Anne breathed a sigh of relief when Griff didn’t hesitate. “Neither do I. I married you knowing how things would be between us. I married you knowing that I could never replace what you’d lost when your wife and child were taken from you. But I do not intend to allow you to dictate what I must give up because of your reservations.”

  She took a step closer to him.

  “I will not spend my life alone. If I—”

  She stopped. She did not have the courage to tell him if she could not have a husband who cared for her, she would at least have children she could love. “You promised you would give me whatever I asked, as long as it was in your power,” she finished.

  “You don’t know what you are asking of me.”

  “I’m not asking anything of you. I’m demanding that you be a husband to me, at least until I am carrying a child.”

  “It’s not just a child. It will be my child.”

  “It will be mine!” she yelled. The frustration and anxiety she felt stripped her of her patience. “You do not have to love it, as you do not have to love me. You only have to provide for me and the child I will bear so that we do not go homeless or hungry.”

  “Bloody hell, woman! Do you think I could watch you grow large with my child and not marvel because I gave it life? That I could ignore the fact that the babe growing inside you is flesh of my flesh and that it carries my blood in its veins?” Griff slapped his hand against his thigh and walked away from her. “Do you think it’s possible for us to couple like two animals, then walk away from each other as if what we shared meant nothing?”

  “It is a risk I am willing to take.”

  “Well, I’m not!” His deep voice caused her to flinch.

  The air cracked in mocking silence as his words echoed in her ears. The door to his secret fears opened, and for the first time she saw what he truly feared. “Is that what you are afraid of? That if you lie with me you might come to care for me?”

  “I already care for you. That’s why I married you, because I care for you.”

  “No. You married me because you felt obligated to me and because Portsmouth left you no choice.”

  “Perhaps you don’t remember the kisses we shared, wife, but I do. There was nothing uncaring or unemotional about them. I all but had you naked in my arms when the earl walked in on us.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything except there is a certain attraction between us.”

  “There is more than an attraction. Every time I hold you I forget why I should not.”

  His words stunned her. “Why shouldn’t you hold me?”

  “Because neither of us can take such a risk. I don’t want anything to happen to you. There has been an attempt on my life twice, and both times someone else paid the price. First Freddie. Then you. That same person was my shadow wherever I went in London, and now he has followed us to Covington Manor. This morning when I went for my ride, he was in the bushes waiting for me.”

  “You saw him?”

  “No. But he was there.” Griff paced the room. His hands fisted in tight knots at his side. “Don’t you see, Anne? I can’t risk that something might happen to you. Just give me until I find who it is that wants to kill me.”

  She squared her shoulders. “I have lived my whole life afraid to take risks. When Father was alive, we couldn’t go to London for fear Society would discover his sickness. Then I was afraid to risk taking a husband because I might end up living the same life as my mother. I don’t want to be afraid any longer, Griff. I don’t want to be alone.”

  He closed his eyes. “You don’t know what you are asking.”

  “I do,” she said softly. “I am asking you to give up one small piece of your life. I am asking you to find a tiny place in your heart for a wife and child. You don’t have to promise we’ll have your whole heart, just a corner where we can find contentment.”

  She paused to take a breath. “I am asking you to give me however many hours or days or years God grants us together.
”

  He shook his head as if struggling with all the fears he’d harbored since he’d lost his wife and son in the storm. She knew his agony as if it were her own.

  “Would it be so terrible to love me, Griff?”

  He shook his head, then reached out his arms and clasped his hands around her shoulders. He pulled her close to him. “No. It would not be so terrible to love you. It would be impossible to lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me, Griff. I promise.”

  He placed his finger beneath her chin and tilted her head, then brought his mouth down over hers. His lips were warm and firm pressed against hers. He pulled away from her, then kissed her again, his touch gentle at first, then harsh and demanding, with a certain desperation she tried to meet and satisfy.

  She knew what he expected, what he wanted. He opened his mouth and she opened hers, anticipating, expecting the thrust of his tongue. The swirling inside her yearned with a savage desperation. She pressed herself closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. She urged him to kiss her like he had before. But he held back.

  When she could not wait any longer, she raked her fingers through his hair and brought his head closer to her. She needed to touch him, feel him, and she explored further.

  His tongue darted forward, touching, then mating with hers in a frenzy she could not control. She withdrew, leaving him to savagely breach the warmth of her mouth. He kissed her long and hard, then pulled his mouth from hers.

  “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he whispered, trailing kisses over her cheek and down her neck.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. She spanned her hands across his back and shoulders to keep him close. “But I am not near the expert as you.”

  His hands cupped her cheeks, holding her steady while his face lingered only inches from hers. “You are expert enough, wife.”

  He brought his mouth down over hers again, kissing her with ravenous hunger and a fierceness that left her gasping. She had no choice but to hold on to his shoulders and arms and let him be her strength.