Love's Promise

by Cheryl Holt

  She bit down on a furious retort, and she gazed up at Michael, struggling to appear cool and composed.

  “Michael”—her voice was a practiced, grating feminine purr—“I don’t care for the company in this part of the ballroom. May we mingle with the other guests?”

  “Certainly.”

  Michael hated their bickering, and he flashed Phillip an exasperated look, then led her away, and as Phillip watched them saunter off, he huffed out a relieved breath. There were many advantages to not being his father’s legitimate son and heir, and avoiding marriage to a girl like Rebecca was the biggest benefit of all.

  “Have you seen the boy?” the Duke asked.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Michael said.

  The morning sun was very bright, and Michael rubbed his forehead, desperate to alleviate the ache. He’d spent the prior evening at Rebecca’s side, only able to tolerate her prattle by drinking too much, and he had the worst hangover ever. His mood was foul, his disposition raw.

  “And...?”

  “He’s the spitting image of John.”

  “You have no doubt?”

  “None.”

  “Damn,” the Duke cursed. “I was hoping he’d have red hair and brown eyes.”

  “There’s no way you can deny paternity, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “What if it was?” the wily old bastard snapped.

  “He has every Wainwright feature. There’s not a court in the land that would believe you. You’d be a fool to try.”

  “So what now?” Anne spoke from across the room where she was seated at a writing desk and finishing her correspondence.

  “Now,” the Duke cut in, “we bring him to London. What would you suppose?”

  “Have you talked to the mother?” Anne queried.

  “No, but I chatted with the aunt several times.”

  “What was her opinion?”

  “I couldn’t ask her.”

  “What?” the Duke gasped. “Are you daft?”

  “They’re very close, and Thomas is very attached to her. She’d never agree.”

  “Who the hell cares?” the Duke protested. “She’s irrelevant to the entire issue.”

  “Father!” Anne groused, but as usual, the Duke ignored her.

  “For God’s sake, Michael,” the Duke fumed, “get back to Sussex and retrieve him. Why all the delay?”

  Michael went to the window and peered outside, and he saw Rebecca’s coach arriving. He glanced over at the Duke. “Before I stir this hornet’s nest, I need to hear that you’re still resolved. Are you?”

  “Of course. Have you ever known me to change my mind once I’m set on an idea?”

  It was the Duke’s greatest fault and greatest strength, his unwavering ability to forge on without vacillation.

  “What is your view of Fanny Carrington?” the Duke continued. “It sounds as if the two of you were awfully friendly. Is she as loose as her sister?”

  “Shut up, Father,” Michael seethed. “The journey exhausted me, and I’m not in the mood for your crudity.”

  Anne said to Michael, “If Thomas is so terribly fond of Frances, perhaps we should leave him where he is.”

  “We just can’t,” Michael replied, detesting what he was prepared to do. “His natural mother is a nightmare, and they’re living in squalid conditions. Thomas can’t stay with them.”

  “Are you positive?” Anne inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful! It’s all arranged.” The Duke rubbed his hands together as if they were about to sit down to a good meal. “When can you go fetch him?”

  “Tomorrow, I guess,” Michael responded.

  When he was through, Fanny would hate him, but it couldn’t be helped. He would do this dreadful thing to her, without regret or remorse. He would do it for Thomas. He would do it for his dead brother whom he’d loved.

  Thomas would become a Wainwright, would be showered with all the pomp and grandeur that could be bestowed on a little boy. Fanny would never recover from the betrayal, and she would definitely never forgive Michael.

  At the notion, he nearly balked at carrying out the Duke’s command, but the moment was lost as the butler stepped into the room and announced, “Lady Rebecca is here to see you, Lord Henley. Are you at home?”

  Michael shook off his uncertainty, pushing Fanny far from his mind.

  “Yes, I’m at home.”

  Anne Wainwright tarried on the verandah, staring out across the park toward the river. Michael and Rebecca were strolling arm in arm, and with him being so dark and distinctive, and her so lithe and fair, they were an attractive couple. It was difficult not to watch them.

  Their heads were bent close, and she was curious as to what they were discussing. Were they whispering lover’s secrets? Maybe they were debating how many children they would have.

  A wave of envy swept through her, and she was surprised by its virulence. She was twenty-five now, and quickly approaching twenty-six. The Duke was a proud, vain man who’d rejected so many offers for her that she couldn’t count them all. In the beginning, he’d insisted he couldn’t find a suitable match, but as one matrimonial season had ended, then another, it had become obvious that he wasn’t doing her any favors.

  The pathetic fact was that the Duke liked having her by his side. She occupied herself with the duties his wife would have assumed, so he didn’t need to remarry, and she suspected that he would never free her from her assigned role.

  Off in the distance, there were sailboats out on the Thames, and suddenly, she suffered the strongest urge to run to the water’s edge. She’d like to flag down a passing captain, would like to climb aboard and sail away.

  She felt as if she was choking on her boring, tedious life, and it would be marvelous to vanish. If something didn’t happen—and soon—she might start screaming and never stop.

  “Anne,” someone called from behind her, and she spun to see Phillip walking outside, and he came over and balanced a hip on the balustrade.

  “Hello, Phillip.”

  She’d known him since she was a girl, since Michael had first dragged him home on a school holiday as if he were a stray puppy.

  He was so tall and broad, and he always looked as if he was laughing at her, as if he thought her stuffy or silly, and she was never positive of how to converse with him. When she did bother to speak, he left her with the impression that she’d said exactly the wrong thing.

  “Have they settled the issue?” he asked as he saw Michael and Rebecca together.

  “Not that I’m aware. She only just arrived.”

  “What’s your opinion? Will he propose?”

  “He’s a fool if he doesn’t.”

  “Michael a fool?” he mused. “Why? Because he won’t marry Rebecca?”

  “She’s lovely,” Anne declared, “and she has the appropriate ancestry.”

  She sounded like a parrot, spewing the Duke’s phrases without conscious reflection. She glanced at Phillip, to check his reaction, and it seemed as if he’d rolled his eyes in exasperation.

  “Do you imagine Michael will be happy with her?” he inquired.

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  Happiness had nothing to do with marriage. Michael would choose his bride for the typical reasons: money, property, and to sire an heir to continue the line.

  “Wouldn’t you like him to be happy?” Phillip pressed, and from how he was assessing her, she felt it was a trick question that had no right answer.

  “Well...yes.”

  “And you presume that Rebecca will make him happy?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I suppose—if he wants a bride who’s just like you.”

  At voicing the remark, he appeared so accursedly innocent, but there was an undercurrent to his words that seemed to be an insult.

  It had never occurred to her that Rebecca wasn’t a suitable candidate to be Michael’s wife. She’d been John’s fiancée for years, and she was Anne’s friend,
like a detached younger sister and practically part of the family, yet Phillip implied that Rebecca was all wrong for Michael. In what way? By what standard?

  Phillip changed the subject. “How did Michael’s investigation go in the country? I tried to pry the details out of him, but he was very tight-lipped. What happened?”

  “It was...difficult.”

  She didn’t like him to be so conversant with Wainwright business, so her tone was very snide—when she hadn’t intended it to be.

  “And how was it difficult, Lady Anne?”

  He only referred to her as Lady Anne, when he thought she was being ridiculous, and his overbearing manner set a spark to her temper.

  “It means just that,” she snapped. “He’s met Thomas, and the child’s situation is very dire.”

  “Surely, you can dish out more dirt than that. Or am I so unworthy that I can’t be graced with any gossip?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You’re up on your high-horse—as usual—so you must have been listening to the Duke harangue. Let me guess: Thomas’s base blood is horribly diluted, and he’s so far beneath all of you, but you’re prepared to sacrifice on his behalf by bringing him here against his will.”

  “Against his will!” she sputtered. “He’s a Wainwright!”

  Phillip constantly sniped about lineage, and she loathed how he tried to make her feel guilty because she’d been born above him. It wasn’t her fault that his father had been a philandering roué, and Anne wouldn’t apologize for the entire social structure upon which England was founded.

  She refused to be sorry for who he was—or who she was.

  “No one said anything terrible about Thomas,” she insisted.

  “I’ll bet the Duke was a veritable fount of charity.”

  Phillip was smirking, and she’d have liked to slap his smug smile off his face.

  “He simply wants Thomas raised with us in London.”

  “The Duke isn’t the sort who’d be glad about it. Why do I sense that Thomas will suffer the trauma of being removed from his family and that he’ll never truly be welcomed by any of you?”

  “What a hideous accusation! He’s John’s son. Of course I’ll welcome him!”

  “Will you? And how about the Duke? He’s such a compassionate man.”

  Phillip viewed their affluence and position as suspect qualities, and he repeatedly attributed wicked motives to them, which made her furious.

  “If you must know, Thomas’s mother is a shrew, and they’re very poor. Michael wondered if they might even be starving. He didn’t think there was any food in the house, so Thomas can’t remain where he is. Is that adequate information to satisfy your morbid curiosity? Have I sufficiently justified myself to you?”

  “Yes, thank you,” he sarcastically replied. “So it’s decided? Michael will bring him to London?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “How do you feel about that? You said you don’t mind, but do you? You’ll bear much of the burden.”

  “It’s best that he be raised here. We can give him everything a boy could ever want when his mother can give him nothing at all.”

  “There are some things that are more important than wealth and excess.”

  “Really? And what might those be?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  He stepped in, his body suddenly trapping her against the balustrade. She couldn’t escape unless she pushed him away.

  He rested a hand on her waist, and she could feel the heat of his skin through skirt and petticoat. She gazed up at him, and there was a glimmer in his expression that she’d never noticed before. It made her heart race and her palms sweat.

  “Don’t you ever get sick of this?” His tone was low and angry.

  “Of what?”

  “Of this bowing and scraping to your father!”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. I have a fine life.”

  “He’s got you so befuddled that you can’t see what’s right in front of your nose.”

  “I can see that you’re a horse’s ass.”

  “And that’s my best trait.”

  He reached into his coat and retrieved one of his calling cards. To her stunned amazement, he stuffed it under the neckline of her gown. It dangled there, braced under dress, corset, and chemise.

  “If you ever grow up,” he said, “call on me first.”

  “I’m an unmarried lady. I could never....call on you. It’s just not done.”

  “It’s done all the time—by women who know what they want.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Precisely.”

  He stormed past her and down into the yard, then he headed for Michael and Rebecca. Michael saw him coming, and he smiled and waved, but Rebecca glowered at the interruption.

  Rebecca had confessed that she detested Phillip and deemed him an ill-bred acquaintance who was undeserving of Michael’s affection, but she’d never state her misgivings aloud—at least not before the wedding. Afterward, Michael would likely hear plenty on the topic.

  Phillip went over to them, and they strolled off. Anne watched them, but she was pondering Phillip and what he’d implied. He’d acted as if unchaperoned women regularly stopped by his home, and the notion made her peculiarly jealous when she couldn’t figure out why she would be.

  If he consorted with every doxy in London, why should she care? What was it to her if he had a reputation as contemptible as his father’s?

  She was incensed that she tolerated his boorish behavior—why did she?—and she could conceive of a thousand nasty things she’d have said to him if he’d still been there with her.

  As if she could summon him back through sheer force of will, she scowled and fumed, sending her livid thoughts winging toward him, but he never once glanced her way.

  The Duke stood at the window in his library, peering out over the park behind the house, where Anne was quarreling with Phillip. The Duke could have saved her the trouble by banning Phillip from the property, but he wouldn’t give Trent the satisfaction of knowing the Duke cared if Phillip visited.

  Phillip said something rude, Anne retorted, and Phillip stomped off, which had the Duke chuckling. They had never gotten along because Anne wasn’t very smart, and her idiocy drove Phillip to distraction.

  Phillip was the only man the Duke had ever met who wasn’t in awe of Anne’s position, and he’d have been an excellent match for her, but the Duke would never allow a union between them, for he would never sully his bloodline with one of Trent’s bastards.

  Michael and Rebecca had just come inside, and they were walking down the hall, as the Duke eavesdropped to ascertain what Michael was thinking.

  Michael was more circumspect than John had been, more guarded and independent, and he would often gainsay the Duke just for the pleasure of asserting himself. Michael might act on any wild urge before the Duke could discourage him, and if Michael decided against Rebecca, it would be impossible to persuade him otherwise.

  “When your nephew arrives,” Rebecca was nagging, “what will you do with him?”

  “I haven’t worked out the details,” Michael replied.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be proper for him to reside with your father, so where will you put him? In an orphanage?”

  “An orphanage! Good Lord, Rebecca, I never would.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s my nephew.”

  “Just barely.”

  “We own many fine mansions. I’m sure we can find a place for one small boy.”

  “But far from London.”

  Apparently, Rebecca was as disturbed by Thomas as the Duke was, himself. Maybe more so. She wasn’t about to welcome the little bastard, and in that respect, he and Rebecca were in complete accord.

  The Duke had devised numerous schemes regarding the lad, but none that would actually benefit him.

 
Once the Duke had control of the boy, he’d have control of the boy’s money, and there were many ways to guarantee that not a single farthing was ever spent on him.

  If it had been up to the Duke, the windfall would have remained a secret, with the Duke keeping John’s bequest for his own use, and the boy living out his life in squalor and poverty. But there had been too many witnesses at the reading of John’s will, so the inheritance was common knowledge, with everyone expecting it to be honored.

  He would pretend the boy was being provided for, would make it appear that he was wallowing in John’s largesse, but the Duke had other plans for that fortune.

  “I had considered,” Michael was telling Rebecca, “purchasing my own home, so Thomas can live with me.”

  There was a stunned pause, then she laughed. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? And trying to get a reaction? I mean, what would people say if they found out?”

  “Why would I care what they say?”

  “But Michael, imagine the scandal.” She changed the subject, fake cheer in her voice. “Have I mentioned that I’m off to Bath with my cousin? She’s invited me to take the waters with her, and I promised I would.”

  “That should be enjoyable.” Michael sounded bored to tears.

  “But after I return, I’ll have several months free. I’m available for...well... whatever.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  They walked on, and the Duke listened as Michael escorted her to the door and sent her on her way. Shortly, he trudged into the library, and he proceeded to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy. He swilled it down, shuddered, then collapsed onto a chair. He looked pale and haggard.

  “Long night?” the Duke noted.

  “Yes, and an even longer day. I’m so hung-over that I feel as if the top of my head might simply blow off.”

  “Then I suppose it’s the worst time to converse on any serious topic, but what is your answer?”

  “To what question?”

  “Will you have Rebecca or won’t you?”

  “You heard her chattering, and you’re correct: This is the worst possible time to ask me.”

  “When would be better?”

  “How about when I’m not so aggravated by her?”

  The Duke snorted, poured his own drink, then sat at the desk, facing his beleaguered son.