His sister frowned. “I do not believe that,” she said chidingly.
A rusty, empty laugh escaped him. “No?” He’d celebrated the same base pleasures, broken his wife’s heart. He was exactly the man’s image.
“If you were like him, you’d not be here even now.”
He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Perhaps.”
Clarisse gave an emphatic shake of her head. “No. Not perhaps. You wouldn’t. Do you know how often he’s visited?” She didn’t wait for him to venture a guess. “Never.”
“One unannounced visit is hardly a good deal more.”
She scooted to the edge of the sofa, closer to him. “It is a very good deal more.” She held his gaze. “Because of what it signifies, Cedric.”
Uncomfortable with the show of emotion, he pulled his gaze away. “Sometimes it is too late to change or be anyone different.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said automatically. “I did,” she added. “But not anymore. My husband showed me differently.”
At the emotion teeming from Clarisse’s words, he looked back at her. Her gaze distant, so much love poured from their depths that another wave of envy assailed him. How very close he’d been to having all of that. But in one careless night, he’d thrown it all away.
Clarisse fiddled with a ruby heart necklace about her throat. He stared at that piece, dimly recollecting it about another woman’s neck. “It was Mother’s,” she said, following his attention.
“I…recall.” He’d forgotten—until now. So resentful over her having simply turned him over to his father’s tutelage, he’d forgotten much about the woman who’d given him life. “Even she knew what I was,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from seeping in.
His sister flared her eyes. “Is that what you believe?”
It’s what he knew. He allowed his silence to serve as his answer.
“Our father had little purpose in either of us, Cedric. You were the heir and I was the chess piece to increase his power…but you were the one who served the most purpose for him.” Cedric had known as much. It was what had fueled his motives of revenge against the old bastard. “So many times when we would go outside, Mother would talk about you and how, before I was born, you were her partner in the gardens.”
A pressure that was oddly constrictive and freeing all at the same time blossomed in his chest. “Did she?”
Clarisse nodded. “She did. Father put a cease to those visits, she said. Alas, future dukes did not take breaks from their studies to play in their gardens, though, did they?” She spoke with an almost rote quality to her voice, the way one who’d heard words uttered so many times she’d had them memorized.
“Yes,” he said tiredly. “Well, it hardly matters now.” Knowing did not change who he’d allowed himself to become. It did not replace this aching, empty void left with Genevieve’s absence.
The ticking of the clock filled the room as silence otherwise reigned.
“You love Genevieve, don’t you?” his sister said without preamble.
His throat worked and he dug deep for a careless, witty rejoinder about being a rake and rakes never needing or wanting love. But he couldn’t force the words out. Instead, he gave a disjointed nod.
“Go to her, Cedric. She loves you. I saw that the day you were married.”
A sound, half-groan and half-growl, lodged in his throat as a memory slid in: Genevieve walking up to him that day in the hedge maze with so much emotion he’d not known what to do with it. It simply poured from her emerald eyes. “I bumbled it all,” he said hoarsely. And there could be no going back.
“I suspect you did.” His sister waggled her golden eyebrows, wringing a pained laugh from him. “But you can fix it. Go to her,” she repeated.
“It is more complicated than that.” There was the babe, lost. A child he’d never wanted because he’d hated the Falcot line, and hated even more the possibility of spreading his vile blood to another being. Those pieces he couldn’t share with Clarisse. For he didn’t know what would happen to him when he breathed those words into existence. It would force him to confront what he’d almost had and what he’d lost. A gift he’d never known he wanted.
“I do not doubt its complexity, Cedric,” Clarisse said, pulling him to the moment. “But if you do not go to her, you’ll never be happy. You’ll be destroyed by loneliness and regret.” More than ten years younger, how could she be so very much wiser? “Love has a wonderful power to heal. Trust that.” And how could he trust that when he’d spent the whole of his life—alone, resisting love, warmth, any emotion?
Heavy footsteps sounded outside the doorway and they looked as one to the entrance as the Marquess of Grafton stepped inside. “Love, are you—?” His words abruptly ended as he took in his wife’s visitor. A flash of antipathy shone within the previously warm eyes.
Could he blame the other man for his hatred? He’d been a careless brother to Grafton’s now wife. As such, Cedric would not force Clarisse’s husband to suffer through his company. “I was just leaving,” Cedric murmured, coming to his feet.
His brother-in-law proved once more the nature of his honorable character. He schooled his features and strode over, hand extended. “St. Albans,” he greeted, his tone colder than a winter frost.
Cedric returned the hard handshake.
His sister quickly came to her feet. “Isn’t it wonderful that Cedric came to call?” From the corner of his eye, he caught the unspoken look pass between husband and wife. There was a wealth of meaning and significance to that private exchange; they were two people who needed no words to know the others thoughts and he felt like the worst sort of interloper on that special bond. Pain scraped at his heart. I had that. I had it and let it go…
“It is,” the other man said at last.
“You surely have much to do before you leave,” Cedric murmured, stuffing his gloves inside his jacket front. “If you’ll excuse me?” Except, he lingered. How did a brother, in fact, say goodbye to a sister? He’d not been one, for the course of his life that he didn’t know how to be…just as he’d not known how to be everything Genevieve had deserved in a husband. “Yes, well,” he said awkwardly with the couple staring expectantly at him and he started for the door.
Focused on the soft tread of his footfalls, he made his way from the room and down the empty corridor.
“Cedric?”
He spun about.
His sister rushed down the hall, her skirts whipping noisily at her ankles. “I want you to have this.” She fiddled with the latch at her throat and removed the ruby pendant. “Mother gave it to me in love.” She pressed it into his palm and his fingers curled reflexively over the warm metal. “It is for your Genevieve.”
He made a sound of protest and made to return it. “I cannot…”
“You can.” She closed her hands over his and gave a squeeze.
“Mother would not have wanted—”
“She would have, Cedric,” Clarisse cut in and released his hands.
Agonized regret clogged his throat and, unfurling his palm, he stared down at the gleaming ruby heart. “Thank you.” He blinked, his eyes stinging. Surely dust. How else to account for the dratted sheen blurring his vision? He stiffened as his sister folded her arms about him, while his hung awkwardly at his sides. Of their own volition, his arms rose up and closed her in a hug. A pressure eased in his chest; freeing and light. He closed his eyes. Perhaps there was such a thing as forgiveness, after all. Cedric let his arms fall. “Thank—”
“Do not thank me.” She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “We are siblings. Now go.”
Cedric hesitated and then with the cherished gift conferred by his sister in his possession, he left her townhouse and made the short horse ride to his own fashionable, Mayfair townhouse. As he climbed the steps, the doors were opened with a familiar ease by Avis. Cedric didn’t break his stride. He continued abovestairs and strode the length of the hall. He did not stop until he reac
hed his wife’s chamber. Pressing the handle, he stepped inside the darkened space. The curtains drawn tight blotted out nearly all light with the exception of a small sliver that shone through a crack in the brocade fabric. He closed the door with a soft click. He laid his back against the panel and stared about her chambers, allowing the memory of her to assail him.
Skimming his gaze over the immaculate room, he searched for a hint or sign of her, but it was as though she’d never been. Cedric walked slowly over to the chaise where they’d sketched together on the night of their wedding and he sank onto the edge.
…I expect you have said that to any number of women…
He dragged a hand over his face. Even in those shared, special moments between them, she’d easily seen the life he lived. She’d seen herself as no different than any woman to come before, when all along she was unlike any he ever had or would know. Cedric sucked in a shuddery breath and pushed restlessly to his feet. Clasping his hands at his back, he rocked on his heels.
Just as he’d had no right to go to Clarisse seeking absolution, he had even less so, going to Genevieve and asking for another chance at them. She’d been clear her last night here that she wanted no part of him, that she regretted having ever entered that library. His chest throbbed, like a weight was being pressed on him, cutting off airflow.
From the corner of his eye, a flash of white caught his eye and he turned. Drawn to that crumpled page; the one out of place in this room, Cedric moved with wooden steps. Desperate for even a hint of her, he picked up the page and unwrinkled it. The small babe, with Cedric’s eyes and hair, grinned back. His fingers curled at the edges of the sheet, rumpling it. Pain speared his heart and sucked the life from his legs. Numb, he slid onto the edge of the mattress.
Realizing immediately what he did, he quickly loosened his grip. He ran his palm over the creased surface and forced himself to accept all that he’d lost. Genevieve and a child. A child she’d rightly said he’d never wanted. For he hadn’t.
Only…his throat worked…looking at this child that would have been, he accepted a truth he’d never known—until now.
He’d hated the prospect of sharing his blood and proving to be the same, miserable excuse of a man his own sire had been. He’d hated the idea of a child of his blood, because he’d spent years hating himself.
Only, to look at this child and realize—this babe would have never been an extension of the Duke of Ravenscourt but rather an extension of Genevieve and him. It would have been a girl with her mother’s smile and strawberry curls. A child that loved to sketch like them. A girl who would have gardened beside her mother and…
He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands, further wrinkling that discarded image. A sob tore from his throat. He allowed the page to slip from his fingers and gave in to the tears. He let them fall unchecked; great, gasping sobs that tore from his chest, emotion long buried. He cried for the man he’d allowed himself to become. He cried for having realized too late that Genevieve and their child were the only gifts he’d ever wanted and needed in life. He cried for the aching void of emptiness that would never, ever be filled unless she was there.
And at last, when the tears were gone, he drew in a juddering breath. She is gone. Cedric rescued the sketch. He’d not changed for her, as she’d stated before she left him and stole all his happiness. He’d changed because of her. He stilled. And mayhap, even if he professed his love and promised her all of him, she’d still choose a life apart…but he needed her to know.
Footsteps sounded outside the door and for a sliver of a moment, hope hung suspended. Then there was a faint rap. “My lord, His Grace is asking to see you…” Avis hadn’t even finished speaking before the duke threw the door open.
“There you are,” his father said coldly. “I am here to speak with you about your wife. I—”
“I have no intention of discussing my wife or my responsibilities with you,” he said quietly, cutting into his father’s lecture. How many times had his father stormed into his home with some form of ducal directive? Only now, Cedric’s words were not meant to taunt or bait.
“I beg your pardon?” his father barked, stamping his cane. Then, he narrowed his gaze. “Have you been crying?” he spoke with the same horror as if he’d uncovered his son’s plot to overthrow the king.
“I am no longer a child,” he said. Even as he’d lived a life without responsibility, he would take ownership of who he was, now. “Do not come here and lecture me. Do not come here and speak to me about my wife or my responsibilities. I am going to my wife.” Triumph lit the duke’s eyes and Cedric felt none of the old familiar hatred. He smiled sadly. “I am not going to Genevieve because you command it or even wish it, Father. I am going because I need to. Because I love my wife.” Sketch in hand, Cedric strode over to the door and past his father. “If you’ll excuse me.” He had a wife to win back.
Chapter 28
She missed him.
Oh, the day she’d boarded his carriage and made the long journey from London, she’d had no doubt she would miss him. She’d just made the erroneous assumption that time would dull the love and all the hurt and anger of their last days together would prove strongest.
It hadn’t.
The ache inside was just as jagged now as it was since her world had fallen apart. Reflexively, she touched a hand to her belly, the pain of that loss brought her closed. She would have been nearly four months along. Her heart wrenched.
“I never thought I’d see you more miserable than the day you showed up five years ago, Genevieve Grace, until I see you now.”
Seated at the windowseat that overlooked the vast Kent countryside, that gravelly, aged voice shifted her attention from the serene view to the ancient, wizened earl she’d once feared. She smiled for his benefit. “I am not miserable.” How could she be? In the month since she’d returned to his residence, she’d slipped so very easily into the routine she’d once known—gardening, walking the countryside and collecting flowers, sketching. Why, these were all the activities she’d always so loved. The enjoyments she’d always taken pleasure in.
Her smile dipped and she looked out the lead windowpane. Except, time had changed her. Nay, Cedric had changed her so much that she’d come to find the enjoyments she’d found did not bring the same joy and fulfillment of being in love. Grief scraped at her still ragged heart. Even if it was a one-sided love.
“This is about your husband?” her grandfather interjected and heat infused her cheeks at his unerring accuracy. She opened her mouth to form a half-hearted protest, but he quelled her with a look. “There is no point in denying otherwise. I’ve read the papers.” She cringed, shame assailing her. Oh, the words printed in those gossip columns; about Cedric, about her, about them. Did her grandfather even know about that scandalous affair she’d arrived at like a naïve fool? “Are you ready to speak of him?”
All the hurt and humiliation of that night came rushing back, as fresh now as it had been. “There is nothing really to speak about,” she murmured. Nothing beyond a failed marriage, a lost child, and a gaping hole in one’s heart.
Restless, Genevieve shoved to her feet and strode over to the floor-length windows that opened out to the back portion of her grandfather’s vast estate. The rolling green hills and cloudless blue skies were a beauty that she could never manage to capture on canvas. Yet, there was none of the calming peace she’d once known in this place.
“Isn’t there?” the earl’s voice rumbled at her back.
She absently touched her fingertips to the windowpane warmed by the summer sun. “No. There really isn’t.” Genevieve lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “My father would have wed me off to one of his old friends and Cedric,” the muscles of her stomach contracted at even breathing his name again. “My husband,” she amended, “offered me a marriage of convenience. He’d have his freedom and I would have mine.” And how simple he’d made it all sound. Only there had been nothing simple about any
part of their union.
Her grandfather snorted. “And you agreed to that because your father wished to wed you to one of his miserable cronies?” The thick skepticism coating that inquiry painted her for the liar she was. “You’d have never married one of my miserable son-in-law’s picks for any reason under the sun. And you’d most assuredly known you had a home here for as long as you needed it.”
His words aligned so very clearly with Gillian’s accusations weeks ago that she sighed. “Yes, I knew as much,” she conceded. Even if she hadn’t admitted as much to herself. Genevieve swiped a forgotten volume of artwork and fanned the pages. “He was…” She grimaced. “Is a rake. I made the mistake of falling in love with him.”
A low growl rattled from his chest and he then dissolved into a fit of coughing. Genevieve took a step toward him but he waved her off. He pulled a white kerchief from his jacket and coughed into it, glaring over the fabric when she made to come over. She stopped. The earl had long been a proud man who’d never accept, nor welcome, such displays of concern. “The gossip is true about him, then.”
As his was more statement than question, she remained silent. She pressed her fingernails into her palms so tightly she left crescent marks on her skin. All the agony, rage, and humiliation blended into a maelstrom of emotion.
“There is no accounting for love is there?” her grandfather said from where he sat in his old, familiar, leather winged back chair.
She shook her head and looked distractedly down at the page she’d stopped on. Francois Boucher’s work stared back and she promptly closed it.
“You haven’t returned to Kent to keep me company.”
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 60
