The Dukes of War: Complete Collection

by Ridley, Erica

The baby responded with an offended kick.

  Edmund swallowed, but did not remove his hands from her belly. His face was inches from hers, his mouth close enough to kiss, the warmth of his fingers sending a delicious shiver across her suddenly sensitive skin.

  “Every morning,” he said softly, his breath caressing her cheek. “You were my only thought.” He tilted closer. “Every night, you were my only thought.” His lips brushed her cheekbone. “Every moment of every day, you were my only thought.”

  She held her breath, unable to move. “And now?”

  He leaned back, keeping both hands on her belly. “Now you both are.”

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Blackpool,” came a sharp, nettled voice as Sarah’s mother emerged from the corridor. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

  Edmund rose to his feet. “Mrs. Fairfax. It is lovely to see you again after so much time.”

  Sarah’s mother wrinkled her nose. “I thought you were dead.”

  Edmund’s smile was frigid, but he made no reply.

  Sarah couldn’t blame him. Her mother’s implication had been anything but subtle. For her own selfish purposes, she would have preferred her daughter’s fiancé to be dead rather than lose a marital connection to a dukedom—and the riches it inferred.

  “How is your family, Edmund?” Sarah put in quickly, hoping to deflect the awkwardness of her mother’s obvious displeasure at the miracle of his return. “I have agonized over not being able to visit them. Your dear parents have suffered so terribly in your absence. That is one homecoming I would have loved to witness.”

  Edmund’s gaze slowly tracked back to hers, his expression unreadable. “They don’t know I’m back.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What? You haven’t told them?”

  “I came straight to you. You were the one I needed most.”

  She blushed as warmth flooded her. “Well, you must go to them immediately. Your mother has needed you the most. She commissioned a gravestone in your honor and spends nearly every waking moment kneeling before it.”

  Pain flashed through Edmund’s eyes.

  “You are right.” He held out his hand, a crooked smile on his lips. “Come with me. We shall go together.”

  Chapter 5

  Edmund gritted his teeth against clatter of his brother’s horses and carriage. Sarah would not be joining them. She’d felt her presence would be a distraction—and she was undoubtedly correct—but he hated to leave her so soon after finding her again. Even a few days apart left an ache in his soul even his family could not completely fill.

  The carriage crossed into Kent. Thank God. Sweat soaked into his clothes despite the chill wind. The noise of the road and the smell of the horses sucked him back into the battlefield no matter how hard he fought to stay in the present. Safe. With his brother. Yet he still could not relax.

  He’d shared the full day’s carriage ride with his twin. The one with which he had once shared everything—his days, his looks, his thoughts. His very identity.

  But they were no longer identical.

  Aside from the prosthetic limb replacing his right leg below the knee, Bartholomew still looked every bit as dapper as he always had. Before the war, Edmund had never once managed to look more stylish and sophisticated than his brother.

  He still wasn’t.

  Despite Bartholomew’s missing limb, he seemed very much together. He was happy, peaceful, amiable… even married. His wife was apparently involved in dozens of charity projects across the country, and Bartholomew was up to his elbows in work right along with her. Happily.

  To say married life agreed with him was like saying water agreed with fishes. The loving glances they exchanged, the little touches, the jokes only the two of them understood.

  A year ago, Edmund had been the one who could finish his brother’s sentences. Now he didn’t know his twin at all.

  This trip was supposed to fix that. Bartholomew’s wife Daphne had explained that of course Sarah must reject Edmund’s invitation to accompany him—the elder Blackpools didn’t even know she was pregnant. Sarah’s condition had needed to remain secret if she wished to escape the worst of public ruination. His parents had no idea.

  Perhaps he ought not to tell them. Not yet. One shock at a time, if you please.

  As they rattled along the country roads, Edmund did his best not to stare at his brother. To go from inseparable to miles and months away… Being back in each other’s company was strange, glorious, overwhelming.

  Daphne had refused to join their party, despite being from the region herself. The long, snow-dusted carriageway between London and Maidstone would be the perfect opportunity for the brothers to reacquaint themselves.

  But Edmund didn’t feel reacquainted. He felt more lost than ever.

  He had dreamed of being rescued. Of coming home. Of returning to his carefree life of devil-may-care scrapes with his brother and stealing illicit kisses from Sarah. Of having his old life back. The life he’d longed for.

  That life was gone.

  If Bartholomew was living under vastly different circumstances, so was everyone else. Oliver had apparently inherited an earldom whilst fighting Boney’s forces. He, too, was married now, as was Xavier Grey—who had apparently leg-shackled himself to a bluestocking, of all creatures. ’Twas dizzying. Every one of Edmund’s determined-bachelor childhood friends had gotten married and moved on.

  Everyone except Ravenwood.

  Edmund supposed he ought to be grateful. If he really had succumbed to his wounds on the battlefield, the last thing he would’ve wanted was for Sarah, or the child he hadn’t known existed, to suffer in his absence.

  He knew without asking that Ravenwood would not have undertaken such an act lightly. The duke was the sole member of their roguish group who had always believed in love. Who had sworn he’d never wed without it. And yet he’d been willing to forgo that lifelong dream in order to rescue Sarah.

  Unless…

  Edmund straightened. Eight months was a long time. His friends and family had truly believed he was dead. Edmund swallowed. Had Ravenwood formed an attachment to Sarah? Might the duke be in love with Edmund’s bride?

  He shook the insidious thought from his head. The twisting in his stomach was exactly why he eschewed thinking about the past. It didn’t matter. Neither did the future—that was an ephemeral dream that could be snatched away in the space of a breath. All anyone could count on was the present. That was the one thing he had any control over at all.

  “Where was your wedding?” he said aloud to escape the tumult in his head. He would focus on his brother. This was their opportunity to get back a little of what they’d lost.

  Bartholomew seemed to glow at the memory. “We had the ceremony in All Saints Church, where Daphne’s father had been vicar for so many years. I think it helped her feel like he was there with us.”

  Edmund nodded at the inadvertent reminder that he was not the only one who had suffered loss. Life had not been easy for him these past months. Perhaps it hadn’t been easy for anybody.

  He just wished he hadn’t missed so much of it. Good or bad. If his brother was to go through a painful recovery, if his friends were to get leg-shackled at every turn, if Sarah was to find herself unexpectedly pregnant and frightened out of her mind, he wished he could have been there, sharing their joy and suffering right along with them.

  Not hundreds of miles away with a hole in his chest and no way to get home.

  He stole a sidelong glance at his brother’s false limb. Trussed up as it was in expensive boots and tailored stockings, there was no hint that the prosthesis was not a real leg. Bartholomew himself showed no hint that he was less whole than he had been before. If anything, he seemed larger, more outgoing, more ebullient. Bartholomew was no cripple. He was cockier than ever.

  Edmund couldn’t have been prouder. “Your recovery was a miracle… and, I imagine, a surfeit of hard work. We’re all fortunate someone found you on the battlefield and was able to get you to safe
ty.”

  His brother swallowed and glanced away.

  Edmund frowned. His brother fiddled with the reins quite convincingly, but Edmund had known his identical twin for their entire lives. Bartholomew was hiding something. From Edmund. His throat grew thick.

  They had never held secrets from each other. Not once.

  It felt even more like a betrayal than being left behind.

  “How is Sarah?” Bartholomew asked suddenly, his voice falsely jovial.

  A change in topics. Edmund forced his tight shoulders to relax. If his brother wished to avoid the subject, so be it. Lord knew, Edmund had no wish to discuss the war. Nor did he desire to spend his first days back arguing with the people he loved most.

  “She’s worried,” he admitted. “We have no money and no place to live. Once we’ve wed, I intend to ask our parents if they wouldn’t mind if we—”

  “Oh, good Lord, no.” Bartholomew nearly choked with horrified laughter. “No new marriage wants for our mother’s unflagging eye. Stay in London. You do have a place to live.”

  “That’s kind of you, brother, but your townhouse—”

  “Your townhouse. You still have it.”

  “Unlikely,” Edmund scoffed. “I left the bank instructions to settle accounts because I never meant to keep that place indefinitely. What money I had would have vanished quickly with the cost of the rent and servants. I’m all to pieces, brother. Not a penny to my name. I couldn’t even sell back my commission to the army. The government has no idea I’m alive, much less home.”

  “I paid it,” his twin said softly. “I not only sold my commission, I received additional funds due to the severity of my wounds while in service. Not just that. During the bedridden months of recovery, I made several risky and foolish investments—some of which paid off quite handsomely.”

  Edmund stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  “The money you had in your accounts when I returned home from war is still there. All your things are still there. One of your servants is still there, keeping the place tidy. I thought you were dead, but I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of your belongings. So I chose the cowardly path, and purchased the townhouse outright so I wouldn’t have to erase your memory. It’s all still yours, brother. To do with what you will. I’m only sorry I couldn’t have done more. If I had so much as suspected you were still alive…”

  His townhouse? His accounts? Edmund’s heart was hammering far too quickly to allow for speech. On the one hand, he had never been one for accepting charity. On the other hand, this was his twin. Doing what brothers do: Looking out for one another. This changed everything.

  His head swam. He had a place to live. Sarah and the baby had a place to live! His townhouse was small, but they would only be a family of three. With the right investments, they might one day live very comfortably indeed.

  Might.

  Then again, tomorrow he could contract consumption and never live to know his child’s face. Such were the vagaries of Fate. He never knew what the wind would bring him or whisk away.

  Edmund pushed the thought out of his mind. The future was unwritten. All he cared about was now, and right now he and his wife and child possessed a townhouse in which to live. That was all that mattered.

  His spirits lifted further as Bartholomew drove his carriage into Maidstone and up the manicured path to their parents’ country house. Nor did he miss the irony. As a young man, Edmund had found his father overbearing and his mother cloying. After the past eight months, he would happily submit to any amount of browbeating or cheek-pinching they chose to deliver.

  His mother was already bustling out the door at the sight of her son’s carriage stopping at the front gate. “Bartholomew! If you had but mentioned that you might visit, I would have prepared a feast for you and Daphne. I shall send the maids to market at once and insist—”

  Edmund and his brother leaped down from the carriage at the same time. Just like they’d done for nearly six-and-twenty years, their boots hit the snow-specked path at the exact same moment.

  His mother gasped. The blood drained from her face.

  Edmund raced forward just as she swayed into a faint, and caught her in his arms.

  His mother frequently fainted (often unconvincingly) when subjected to a sudden shock. He had always found her flair for the dramatic both irritating and embarrassing. This time, however, he was surprised to discover that he had missed it.

  His swooning mother felt like home.

  Edmund’s wide-eyed father raced from the house looking thinner and much older since last Edmund saw him. Before Edmund could do more than grin delightedly at his father, his mother sprang out of his arms with the agility of a dancer and clapped her hands with glee.

  “I told you he would come home!” she chortled in her husband’s direction. She spun back to Edmund and pinched his cheeks as tears streamed down her own. “You are far too thin. You must eat! I’ll have the cook make… I’ll have him make all your favorite foods. Oh, Edmund, I knew you would come home. I knew it, I knew it!”

  “When did you return, son?” his father asked, his glistening eyes betraying his restrained pleasure. “Could you not have written?”

  “Of course he could not,” his mother snapped. “If he could’ve written, he would’ve done so. He’s here, which is a hundred times more important than having written.” She beamed at Edmund. “Now that you’re here, you shan’t leave again. My heart couldn’t possibly handle losing you a second time. You wouldn’t make your mother go through that again, would you?”

  Bartholomew raised his brows. “A townhouse in London is hardly the same as abandoning you, Mother. It takes less than a day to get from London to Maidstone if—”

  “Oh, shush. Now that you’re married, you don’t have time for your mother. But Edmund! Edmund has all the time in the world. He’ll live here—of course he’ll live here. Bartholomew, you and Daphne could live here, too. There’s room for all of us. I don’t see any reason to live in London when you could live right here, in the chambers across from mine.”

  “We’ll stay the night at least,” Bartholomew said. “But we’re here for a visit, not to live. I’m leaving it up to Edmund how much time he can spare.”

  “You’re a bad son. A horrid son. But I forgive you everything because you brought me Edmund. Come inside, both of you. How are you going to eat if you’re standing around the front porch like a flock of hens? The footmen will carry your things inside, don’t you worry about that. Just march yourselves to the table and let me ring for some tea.”

  “Mother, has it ever occurred to you that grown, married men might not wish to live in their parents’ house?” Bartholomew asked as he trailed her toward the dining room.

  “What a foolish thing to think. Only you would say something so inane. Of course children wish to live close to their parents. Why wouldn’t they? If for some reason you prefer privacy over your own parents, young man, there’s no need to go gallivanting all over England to find it. There are no less than half a dozen perfectly suitable homes right here in Maidstone available for purchase or to let. A mile or two is more than far enough to live from one’s family. Don’t you think so, Edmund?”

  He opened his mouth.

  She waved his words away. “Of course you do. You’re the sensible one. When Bartholomew goes on holiday with his ‘crusading’ wife, you’ll stay right here with us where you belong. Hear me, Bartholomew? Your brother wants to stay home. Bachelor men aren’t nearly as persnickety as you married men are.”

  Edmund cleared his throat. “As the fates would have it, Mother, I won’t be a bachelor for much longer. Miss Sarah Fairfax and I are to be married.”

  “Are you?” His mother clasped her hands together and looked perilously close to swooning anew. “That’s wonderful! You’ll stay here for the length of your engagement—How long are you thinking? Two months? Three?—and that lovely girl can stop by every single week so that I can help her plan the festivities. A
June wedding means hydrangea and peonies, I should say, and perhaps a snapdragon or two to help balance the color. Oh, what fun this shall be to plan!”

  Edmund glanced at his brother, who simply held up his hands and took a less-than-subtle step back. Bartholomew was here as supporting troops, but Edmund would need to lead the charge.

  “Actually…” He cleared his throat. He was just going to have to say it. “I’m afraid it won’t be a long engagement. Sarah is… in a family way, and we must perform the ceremony as soon as possible. The babe will be born within a fortnight.”

  His father stared at him. “When did you say you got back?”

  Edmund was saved from awkward explanations by his mother fainting directly into her husband’s arms.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?” his mother wailed from her semi-prone position. “I have been a grandmother for months and hadn’t the least idea. How will I ever forgive her?”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Edmund snapped, belatedly realizing the depths of the predicament Sarah had found herself in. “You know as well as I that an unmarried woman cannot be seen to be with child if she ever wishes to present her face to Society again. Worse, she thought I was dead. By confessing her situation to you—or to anyone—she would have destroyed any opportunity to save the baby’s fate.”

  His mother wiggled free from her husband’s arms. “But when would you have—”

  “Bruges,” he answered. “Just before Waterloo. She joined me for my last day of leave.”

  His father arched a brow.

  Edmund colored. “During her stay, I asked her to marry me and she acquiesced. I regret that my actions caused her to suffer. My feelings have not changed, but the war disrupted our timeline.”

  Disrupted it so badly that Sarah was forced to the altar within scant weeks of her expected delivery. She could not have waited any longer, he realized. She was out of choices and out of time.

  “In that case, of course the two of you will live here,” his mother said briskly, her eyes softening. “Trying to avoid scandal in London is like trying to avoid heat in the summertime. Bring her here at once. She’ll feel right at home. We’ll be two peas in a pod, planning a wedding and a christening. Why, I’m happy to set up a nursery in any room that she wants. The chamber between hers and mine will do nicely. I’ve got nothing else to do. I’ll be the most helpful, loving, and attentive grandmother you lovebirds could ever dream of!”