Because of You

by Cathy Maxwell

  “It can’t be,” Ayleborough said slowly. “It’s impossible.”

  Her husband drew a deep breath, straightening his shoulders. “Yes, brother, it is I.”

  “But we thought you dead,” Ayleborough said.

  Marvin opened his palms like a magician showing he played no tricks. “I’m not.”

  Chapter 8

  Confused, Samantha looked to her husband, not understanding. The duke was his brother? But Alyeborough’s family name wasn’t Browne.

  She expected the duke to deny the relationship, but once he had recovered from his initial shock, he said in a clipped, polite voice, “I think it best we continue this conversation in private.”

  “As you wish,” Marvin answered, equally formal. He could have been addressing a stranger.

  “Fenley,” Ayleborough said to the bagwigged servant. “Make arrangements for a private room.” Fenley pulled Mr. Sadler aside and the two men stepped into the hall.

  Marvin turned to Samantha. “I must talk to my brother. It will take only a few minutes. Do you wish to stay here and finish your breakfast, or go up to the bedroom?”

  She could scarce believe her own ears. “You’re not jesting, are you?”

  “About your going to the bedroom, or about the duke being my brother?” he asked, expressionless.

  Samantha made an impatient sound. “The duke.”

  “No.”

  She rocked back on her heels as she digested this new information. She cast a quick glance around the common room. Mrs. Sadler, Squire Biggers, the duke’s servants—all watched her as if witnessing a play unfold.

  Only Ayleborough and her husband seemed not to notice. Then, for the briefest second, the duke’s gaze met hers. He looked away quickly.

  Marvin must have seen the exchange. He took her hand. “You know I’ll always take care of you. You understand that, don’t you?”

  She searched his grim face, feeling more uncertain than before. He stood so close, she could see the texture in his eyes. This morning, she had teased him about how dark they were, claiming he must be hiding a black soul to have such unfathomable eyes. She had been lying on top of him, naked, happy, satiated. Her teasing had brought a flicker of copper light into his eyes and she had declared him not completely unsalvageable. He’d laughed then and had rolled her down onto the bed, where he’d tickled her, and when she’d begged for mercy, he’d held her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

  Even sitting here in the middle of the common room with everyone staring at them, her body ached for his touch…while her pride, and what was left of her common sense, warned her to beware.

  “You’re not really a sailor.”

  He shook his head. “Not here, Sam. I’ll answer all your questions, but not here. There are too many people watching.”

  She nodded dumbly. Nothing made sense—

  A blinding flash of insight caught her unawares. She forgot his warning. “You aren’t really Marvin Browne. You couldn’t be and also be the duke’s brother.”

  The line of his mouth flattened. But he didn’t deny her accusation.

  And she had her answer. The realization shook her to the core.

  Fenley informed the duke that a private room was ready. Ayleborough looked to her husband. “I’ll be back shortly, Sam. We’ll talk then.”

  Samantha started moving with him. “I will go with you. I must hear everything.”

  “It would be best if you waited,” he said.

  She nodded to the small crowd watching them. “I’ll go mad waiting. I want to be there.”

  He hesitated, but changed his mind. “Then come.” He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. It was a possessive gesture—and yet as she followed him across the room toward the duke, she felt as if she walked beside a complete stranger.

  Her legs felt like two rickety poles which could barely support her weight. Head high, she managed to avoid the curious and wondering eyes of her friends and neighbors.

  However, at the door of the inn’s single private room, her husband stopped. “Samantha, wait for me inside. I have something I must attend to.”

  Ayleborough already waited for them. A flash of irritation crossed his face. “Yale, you can’t leave now.”

  Yale. Of course. She felt stupid that her befuddled mind was taking so long to put all the pieces together. “You are the prodigal? The one who died at sea?”

  He frowned at her use of the word “prodigal.” “I will explain everything, but I need one moment.” Without further explanation, he left her alone with the duke of Ayleborough.

  “Please come in,” Ayleborough said in a kind voice. “It’s Miss Northrup, Vicar Northrup’s daughter, isn’t it?”

  Samantha nodded mutely.

  “Well, sit here in this chair, my dear. My brother has always had his own priorities.” He guided Samantha to one of the four chairs sitting in front of a cheery fire burning in the hearth. Gratefully, she sank down onto the hard wood chair seat. She felt cold, very cold—but her chill wasn’t from the weather and the heat of the fire could not help her.

  “Fenley, fetch something for Miss Northrup to drink,” Ayleborough said. The servant hurried to comply. The door shut behind him.

  Samantha raised her eyes to his. “I’m not really married, am I?”

  “Married?” This news seemed to surprise the duke more than discovering his brother was alive.

  She grasped her hands in her lap. “Yes, Marv—I mean…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what to call him,” she confessed.

  The duke drummed his fingers on the table. “Don’t call him anything for now. Just tell me what happened.”

  Samantha told him of the marriage in a low monotone. She kept her emotions firmly in check. In reality, she was afraid of feeling anything. Afraid of the truth. When she’d finished, she forced herself to ask, “Is he the one everyone thought had died at sea?”

  The duke clasped his hands behind his back. “Yes.”

  Samantha was thankful she was sitting, or she might have swooned. She’d unknowingly married Yale Carderock. The prodigal…the rakehell…the scoundrel! She’d called him as much the night they’d met.

  The door opened without a knock. Her husband came back in the room, closing the door firmly behind him. She stared at her hands lying uselessly in her lap, listening to his steps walk the wooden floor toward her.

  His booted feet stopped in front of her. “Sam, I’m sorry you heard the truth this way.”

  “Which is?” she asked carefully, needing him to explain all—yet fearing the explanation.

  “I’m not Marvin Browne.”

  There. He’d admitted it. “With an ‘e,’” she added softly.

  His hand came down on her shoulder, but suddenly she could not bear his touch. It sparked too many memories, too many questions.

  She shook his hand off and came out of the chair, practically fleeing to the other side of the room. She would have run further if she could have. Instead, she crossed her arms protectively against her chest, waiting.

  Fenley interrupted them with a tray of drinks. Understanding that his presence was not wanted, he placed the tray on the table and backed out of the room.

  The duke took command. “Yale, tell us what happened. We’re both shocked. After all, everyone in England has believed you dead for years.”

  “I survived the storm,” Yale said curtly. “I don’t know how you received news of my death. You would know more about that than I.”

  “But why didn’t you contact us? And why have you returned now, after all these years?” Ayleborough asked.

  For the span of a heartbeat, Samantha thought she saw regret in her husband’s dark eyes, but his voice revealed no emotion as he said, “I came to see Father.”

  “You’re late,” Ayleborough said crisply.

  “I gathered that,” came the dry response.

  For the first time, seeing the two men standing together, Samantha was struck by the uncanny resemblance. Yale t
owered almost four inches over his brother and had dark hair and eyes, yet both shared lean jawlines and strong noses. Worse, they shared the ability to look right through a person. They were doing so right now to each other. Stubborn, resolute, arrogant…it was a quality born into them and more telling of their paternity than a certificate of birth.

  She also sensed they were more strangers than friends.

  She cleared her throat and dared to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”

  “Yes,” Ayleborough agreed. “Why didn’t you tell her who you really are? Or have you no pride in your family name?”

  “Damn you, Wayland,” came the low, dangerous growl from the man she’d married. “I owe an explanation to her, not to you. Father disinherited me…or have you forgotten?”

  Ayleborough’s blue eyes flashed with anger. Samantha doubted if anyone ever talked to him in that manner. “I have not forgotten,” he answered, but then he paused, the stiffness leaving his body. “It was the one thing in our father’s life he truly regretted. Yale, he’d sent runners out to look for you. He realized he shouldn’t have done it almost the moment it was done. He hadn’t really planned for matters to go so far. It was all a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” Yale shook his head. “He posted the announcement in the papers, Wayland. He turned my life upside down. My friends refused me and all doors were shut to me. He left me with nothing. And now you tell me it was a mistake.”

  “He only wished to point out to you the error of your ways,” the duke answered, defending their father.

  “Well, he did that,” Yale answered. “It was a bitter lesson. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.”

  Ayleborough shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. Well, you know how our father could be.” Almost as if for Samantha’s benefit, he added, “He expected much from his sons.”

  “And I was a far cry from what he thought proper,” Yale injected crushingly. “He couldn’t wait to turn me out.”

  “Yale, that’s not it. Perhaps if you’d done better in school,” the duke said, as if picking up the threads of an old conversation.

  “It was more than that, Wayland, and you know it.” He looked to Samantha. “It’s true I was a poor student, the bane of my tutors. Father hated imperfection in any form…especially when he had perfection in Wayland.”

  “Yale, I was not—”

  “Nonsense, brother. You were—and are—the very image of our father. He couldn’t help but admire you more.”

  Ayleborough turned toward the mantel, staring into the fire a moment before saying in a quiet voice, “I’m also different in many ways.”

  “Yes?” Yale drawled with a lack of interest. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? So far I’m unimpressed.”

  Samantha drew in a sharp breath. She’d never heard anyone even dare to speak of the powerful duke of Ayleborough in this manner.

  Nor was the duke accustomed to it. His eyes narrowed on his brother as if he studied a disagreeable insect. “You will remember my station.”

  Yale smiled, his expression cynical. “I have never been allowed to forget it. After all, I was the one too unworthy to be the son of the duke of Ayleborough.”

  Ayleborough pounded his fist against the mantel. “Damn you, Yale. You never were one to listen to reason. Can’t you see what a devil of a fix you are in? I’m the only one who can release you from it. Once those villagers realize you’ve married Miss Northrup under false circumstances and played a prank on all of them, they’ll want to see you hanging from the highest tree in Sproule.”

  Yale’s fists doubled at his side. He stood ramrod straight, towering over his brother. “My marriage to Miss Northrup is not a prank. Nor do I need or seek your help. We would have been gone from Sproule by now, except for your appearance.”

  “Oh, pardon me for inconveniencing you.” Ayleborough’s voice dripped sarcasm. “By the way, what were your plans for her? Were you just going to drag her here and there like a wandering gypsy?”

  “She’d be with me,” Yale said.

  “To do what? To go where?”

  “That is none of your bloody business…Your Grace.”

  “Oh, but it is now. I’m the head of this family—”

  “And I’m not a part of it. I was given the boot, the sack. I have no claim on the house of Ayleborough, and it has no claim on me!”

  For a long moment the two men squared off, their eyes alive with anger. Samantha didn’t know what to think. She resented their talking about her as if she were nothing more than a sack of wool—yet she felt she was witnessing a clash of titans.

  Then the duke hit the table with his fist so hard it jumped. “Damn you, Yale. You are the most infuriating person. You never would listen to reason. Eleven years has done nothing to change you!” He paced the floor in silence.

  Samantha glanced at her husband. He was completely unmoved by the duke’s outburst.

  She broke the silence. “Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

  With a start, both men turned to look at her. It was as if they’d forgotten her.

  Yale took a step toward her. “Sam…I don’t want you to think the wrong thing.”

  “Then what is the right thing?” she asked, her voice a quiet contrast to their shouting. “I want to hear the story from your lips.”

  For a moment she feared he wouldn’t answer her. And then he spoke. “Seeing my own grave in the vault that night shocked me. I’d come to Sproule because I’d been told my father was dead. I didn’t believe it. Childish of me, wasn’t it, to think he would live forever? But then, Wayland will tell you Father possessed that sort of charisma.”

  “I can understand your reason for using the false name at first, but once you knew we were going to marry, why didn’t you tell me your real name?”

  His lips curled derisively. “After you gave me the lecture over what a profligate son I had been? Are you saying now you would have changed your opinion?”

  Samantha remembered telling him of her father’s sermon on the prodigal son and her cheeks burned. “Still, you could have told me your real name at half a dozen different opportunities.”

  “And would that have made you happy, Sam? Would it have changed anything, or only caused you to distrust me more? I didn’t ask to get sick, or for you to be the one to care for me. It was happenstance, one of the cruel tricks of fate that life plays on us. Before I realized it, it was too late to confess the truth.”

  “But you married me under a false name.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave you behind to face the censure of these selfish villagers. You didn’t deserve it. You’d done nothing wrong.” He shot a quick glance at his brother before confessing, “And I didn’t want my family to know I had been here. Perhaps it would have been different if Father had been alive.”

  “Why did you come to see Father?” the duke asked with sudden interest.

  Yale ignored his question. Instead he took a step toward Samantha. “I wasn’t going to leave you, Sam. I was going to take care of you.”

  She shook her head sadly. “But you were still going to leave me behind.”

  “In your own house, with your own living.”

  But I’d still be alone…

  When she didn’t answer, he prodded, “Sam?”

  She turned her head away, not wanting to speak of it anymore. She wished she could curl up into a little ball and disappear.

  Yale refused to let her be. He crossed the space between them. “Talk to me, Sam. Don’t close up on me.”

  She didn’t answer. It hurt too much.

  “I’ll make it up to you. I never meant to hurt you.” He reached out, but she jerked away, moving closer to the duke. Tears threatened, but she would not cry. She would never cry over him.

  A knock sounded on the door. Yale almost rushed to answer it. In walked Vicar Newell and Squire Biggers.

  “What are you doing here?” Ayleborough said, as irritated as Samantha by the interruption.

>   “I asked the squire to fetch the vicar,” Yale said. “I need to remarry my wife.”

  Samantha’s mouth dropped open, but before she could discover her voice, he launched into a very credible explanation to the vicar for the present state of affairs. Samantha listened in shock as he explained how he’d been surprised that his family had thought him dead and had assumed a false name so that he could tell his family first of his existence and not have them learn of it through gossip.

  He made it all sound plausible—innocent, even.

  “Unfortunately, I became ill. I was confused by the illness and thought it better to keep my real identity quiet until after I had gotten in touch with my family. You are aware that I was disinherited?”

  Squire Biggers and the vicar nodded.

  “Then you can understand my concerns,” Yale said. “However, now that I have seen my brother and have received his blessing, I can marry Miss Northrup under my real name. Vicar, will you perform the service?”

  “Now, Mr. Browne? I mean, Mr.—ah, er…?” The vicar looked at confusion to Squire Biggers.

  “Wait!” Samantha said. She wasn’t about to remarry this man, but no one paid attention to her.

  “You will address my brother as ‘Lord Yale,’” the duke said, his voice overriding hers.

  “I don’t want a title,” Yale said abruptly. He nodded to Vicar Newell. “‘Mr. Carderock’ is fine.”

  “‘Lord Yale,’” the duke corrected, almost through clenched teeth.

  “I was disinherited, remember?”

  “I’ve already informed you the disinheritance was a mistake,” his brother said, smiling tightly.

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Nevertheless, I am reinheriting you.”

  Yale faced his brother, the set of his jaw stubborn. “I don’t want to reinherited.”

  Ayleborough stared at him a moment before turning to the squire and the vicar. In a pleasant voice, he said, “Would you gentlemen please give us a moment of privacy?”

  They didn’t dare disobey him and moved back out the door. The minute the door closed behind them, Ayleborough whirled on his brother. “You don’t contradict the duke of Ayleborough in public.”