The Earl Claims His Wife

by Cathy Maxwell

  Gillian shrugged. “I could leave now.”

  He could call her bluff. She wouldn’t leave the baby the way he was…but that would only lead to more resentments later.

  No, he was going to let this run its course. “I accept. Anthony needs you.” He deliberately mentioned the child, not wanting her to think he needed her. Did Gillian believe she was the only one with pride?

  “Very well,” she said without bravado. “We have an agreement.” She took a step as if not knowing what to do next. “There are only two bedrooms on this floor.”

  “The upper floor is for servants. I told you it wasn’t a large house.”

  “I shall sleep in here with the baby then.”

  “No,” Brian said, “I will. What did you say he needs? Feedings every two hours. I will do those. You take the room across the hall.”

  His decision was a good one. He could see that Gillian had been ready to martyr herself for Anthony, sleeping on a cot with the baby, and probably blaming him for every little thing that gave her discomfort. Mrs. Vickery was lazy but not dull-witted. The sheets in his room were clean and the bed comfortable.

  “If that is how you would have it,” she answered, her voice less certain. “Excuse me while I unpack my things.” She didn’t wait for his response but left the room, closing the door after her.

  For a long moment, Brian studied the closed door as if he could see through it.

  Anthony stirred. The poor babe. After weeks and months of crying, he was exhausted. He was so bloody defenseless. It pulled at Brian’s heart.

  Just as the realization of how deeply he had hurt Gillian now made him reconsider all he’d once thought about himself.

  He was changing. Perhaps it had been the years away at war. Perhaps he had always been destined to be the man he was slowly becoming.

  One thing he did know, Gillian was part of that change. Even years ago, from the moment he’d met his wife, he’d recognized in her something pure, something powerful.

  That was the reason he needed her back. The younger version of himself, the man who had married her had not appreciated what he’d found.

  The man he was now did.

  She’d admitted she had loved him from the moment they’d met.

  Gillian was not one to give up love easily. He’d made a mistake and chosen the wrong woman once. It had taught him to appreciate the right one. Any doubts he might have harbored had been dispelled by their lovemaking.

  No matter what she thought, he would never honor their agreement.

  She was his.

  He just had to convince her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gillian marched across the hall into the other room and slammed the door with all her might. It felt good to manifest her anger into a loud, substantial sound—and then she realized she wasn’t completely certain where she was.

  The room was pitch black and cold. The drapes were probably pulled closed like they had been downstairs and in the baby’s room. She assumed she was in Wright’s room and that there was a bed around there someplace, but she didn’t know where.

  And of course, there was no fire in the grate because nothing was as it should be in this house. Not the housekeeper, the servants, or the master.

  Worse, she’d just agreed to stay here.

  Gillian swung her hand out in frustration and hit the footboard of the bed. It would have hurt except that she was so relieved to have some sort of bearing in the dark. She started following it around, thinking it would lead her to a night table and, hopefully, a lamp or candle.

  A loud knock on the door startled her enough that she jumped.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Brian.”

  “Go away.”

  “I have your trunk.”

  “Leave it outside the door.”

  “I have a candle.”

  “Stay right there.” Gillian held out her hands and started walking in the direction of where she thought the door was. The dark was disorienting. “Talk to me,” she ordered.

  He chuckled. “I thought you could use some light. I don’t know if Hammond was able to replace the old candles or do anything after the wet nurse ran out on us.” There was a pause. “I’m fairly certain Mrs. Vickery was too busy cleaning the kitchen to see to your comfort.”

  She found the door handle. Opening the door, she found her husband standing in a blessed circle of candlelight. Her trunk was behind him in the hall.

  “Thank you,” she said, reaching for the candle, but he held it away.

  “Let me check and be certain everything is as it should be.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him.

  He moved the candle even further away. “I know you will be fine but why stumble around when in a few minutes, I can show you what you need to know?”

  She really did not like him.

  Wright smiled as if reading her thoughts and enjoying them.

  Gillian opened the door wider and stepped away, the permission he needed to enter. After all, the sooner he showed her what he thought she needed to know, the sooner he would go.

  And if he thought he was going to receive another opportunity to seduce her, he was wrong. In fact, she almost hoped he’d try it. She wasn’t afraid to double her fist and give him a punch.

  Wright walked over the bedside table and lit an oil lamp. Its warm glow spread through the room, dispelling every shadow save one—Wright’s. In his bedroom, he seemed larger than life. She moved away from him as he lit another lamp on a small desk by the window.

  While he went to the door to bring her trunk in, she crossed to the window. As Gillian had suspected, the drapes were closed. She peeked outside. It was raining, a hard, pelting twilight rain that made the windows rattle. Funny but her emotions had been running so high, she’d not heard a thing.

  “I’ll start the fire and then move out of your way,” Wright said quietly.

  As in the nursery, a fire hadn’t been laid out in the grate. However, the kindling and coal was by the hearth. Wright started laying out the kindling in a crisscross fashion.

  Gillian watched him with one eye while she took stock of her new surroundings. The room’s walls were white, the floor a dark wood. It struck her as a man’s room. The bed was a simple four-posted one, much like they’d had in the inn the night before. A door leading to a dressing room was open. From her vantage point, she could see the cot Hammond must have slept on and a huge wardrobe with the doors wide open. Clothes and shoes had been tossed on a bench as if Hammond had been interrupted. Nor was there a pile of laundry waiting to be done as there had been in the nursery.

  “I also had a word with Mrs. Vickery about the laundry,” Gillian said, without looking at Wright. She crossed to the bed and turned down the covers. Thankfully the sheets were clean. “She was very lax about seeing to that chore as well. The baby’s down to a few nappies. She tried to tell me it was the upstairs maid’s responsibility, but I don’t think you have an upstairs maid, do you?”

  “Mrs. Vickery hired a relative. The girl was lazy. She and Hammond had words and she left last week.” Wright had the kindling going and had started laying coals on top of it. “I assumed Mrs. Vickery would manage it.”

  “What is it with men?” she asked the room in general, needing a release for the discomfort she felt being this close to him. His presence seemed to fill every corner, every nook. “They could let the house fall down around their ears and be oblivious to it.”

  “I have a wife,” Wright said without looking up from his task.

  “Had. You had a wife. But you will find another. You are adept at reeling women in like fish on a line.”

  That barb hit its target.

  Wright rose in one fluid movement. “What do you want from me, Gillian? You say you want my honesty but when I tell you the truth, you throw it in my face. I made love to you in the coach because I find you beautiful. I admire you. I respect you. What kind of marriage will we have? I don’t know. Probably the same
sort my parents have—one of benign neglect—if you don’t learn to trust me.”

  “How can I trust you?” she lashed back.

  “I don’t know,” he practically roared at her, his frustration clear. “You will have to work that out yourself. After all, you’ve spent the past hours being certain I know how woefully inadequate I am.”

  He walked to the door. “I’m not letting that child die. I’ve had enough of death in my life. And if you can’t see your way to either forgive or forget what has happened between us, then you are right, we are best apart. You don’t have to wait a month. You can leave on the morrow. Because at this moment, Gillian, you are not the priority.”

  That’s when she heard the baby crying and wondered if Wright had already heard it. He didn’t even look back at her as he left the room.

  Gillian stood still, hearing the nursery door shut. The crying persisted, grew shriller. Her goat milk remedy was obviously a temporary answer. The baby would have to be nursed consistently.

  For a second, she was tempted to go to the nursery to see if she could help, but held back.

  Wright would not welcome her there. His words stung. He’d cut her loose. Released her from any obligation.

  It’s what she’d wanted…

  The baby’s crying stopped.

  Slowly she sank to sit on the edge of the bed. Common sense told her she should be relieved it was over between them. Wright was not good for her. She expected one thing from him, and he never gave it.

  Her irrational side, the one that thought in pure emotion, wanted to break down and wail like Anthony that she could not have what she wanted from Wright.

  They weren’t good for each other. That was why she’d left him.

  Then again, they barely knew each other.

  A knock on the door had her on her feet. “Yes?” she asked, expecting Wright.

  “I wanted to know if my lady and his lordship wish dinner?” Mrs. Vickery’s voice asked in an overly formal voice. Apparently this cold shoulder was Gillian’s punishment for making the woman carry out her duties properly.

  Gillian couldn’t give a care if the housekeeper was miffed. What upset her was the disappointment she felt that it was not Wright at her door. He had her in knots, and only she could free herself.

  “I don’t care for any. Thank you,” she told the housekeeper.

  “And his lordship?”

  “He’s in Master Anthony’s room,” Gillian said and could well imagine the housekeeper’s eyebrows rising to her hairline. Once again, she’d find herself being gossiped about by the servants, just as she was in the marquess’s household.

  Tears began rolling down her cheeks. She swiped them away with her hand. She was being ridiculous. Of course, she didn’t want to live with Wright. He was the worst sort of person.

  But she didn’t stop crying.

  Instead, she kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed fully dressed. She pulled the covers up over her head. The heat from the fire was spreading through the room, but she was cold. Very, very cold.

  She must not be in love with Wright. She couldn’t. She had to think of Andres. Uncomplicated Andres—who loved her.

  And yet, as she drifted into an exhausted sleep, her last thoughts were of feeling Wright’s weight upon her and his body moving within her.

  The baby’s crying woke her.

  Gillian sat up, disoriented. For a second, she imagined herself back in her father’s house.

  The lamps had burned low. She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t blown them out to save oil, and then remembered.

  She was still dressed and her hair was an unruly tangle. She pushed it back with her hands and climbed out of bed. Crossing over to her trunk, she had every intention of opening it and pulling out a nightdress when Anthony’s shrieking cry made her pause.

  Where was Wright?

  She didn’t want to interfere but she knew how a colicky baby could drive a person to madness. Men weren’t good with babies. They lacked the patience. Her father rarely touched them until they were at what he called a “reasonable age,” which was someplace around five.

  Or Wright could be sleeping soundly and not hear the crying.

  Whichever way it was, she should check on Anthony.

  Plaiting her hair into a quick braid, Gillian went out her door and crossed the hall. She cracked open the door to the nursery, not wanting to go barging and waking Wright if he was there.

  However, what she saw gave her pause.

  Wright hadn’t deserted Anthony or slept through his needs.

  He was walking the floor with the baby on his shoulder trying to burp him and soothe him with soft words. Wright had removed his jacket and removed his neck cloth, but he still wore his boots. Gillian wondered if he’d slept at all.

  It was obvious they had just had a feeding but Anthony was not satisfied. In fact, he seemed more angry than in pain.

  Her husband sensed she was there. He looked to the door. “What?” he demanded.

  Gillian pushed the door wider. “I heard him crying. I was just checking to see if everything is all right.”

  “It is.” His voice was as formally offended as Mrs. Vickery’s had been.

  She should withdraw. He obviously did not wish her help…still, Gillian wasn’t one to turn her back on a problem.

  “You fed him?” she said, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes.” It was amazing how annoyed Wright could sound with one word.

  “Did he eat well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe he could still be hungry?”

  Wright stopped his pacing. “I thought we wanted to feed him small meals until we were certain his body could handle the food?”

  Gillian entered the room. She walked over to where Wright stood and placed her hand on Anthony’s back. The baby was furiously chewing his fist. “I believe he is hungry.”

  Wright shook his head. He was tired, but alert. She now understood how he could have fallen asleep so deeply in the coach the day before. “You said we should be careful, that his stomach can’t hold too much. Small meals.”

  “It is a delicate balance,” Gillian answered. She shook her head. “We must trust he will guide us. Let’s try more food and see if that doesn’t settle him.”

  It did. Anthony ate his fill and then fell fast asleep. Wright had fed him. He now sat still with the baby in his lap. He was so silent, Gillian started to wonder if he’d nodded off, too.

  And then he spoke. “I don’t know what I shall do if I lose him.” He raised his eyes to hers. “He’s such a defenseless, wee thing—and yet, he has a valiant heart. He’s already overcome incredible odds to have lived this long.”

  Gillian sat on a stool beside Wright’s chair. She did something she’d yearned to do from the moment she’d first met Anthony—she cupped his head with her hand, marveling at how downy soft his hair was. The newness of babies always amazed her. “He has quite a head of hair,” she murmured, combing its short length with her fingers.

  “My nanny used to say all of us boys did.” He lifted Anthony’s thin arm. “I never noticed babies all that much before. Now I see them everywhere, plump, laughing, healthy. I’ll ask their mothers how old their baby is and they are all younger than Anthony…”

  Glancing up, Gillian saw a tear in the corner of his eye. He blinked it away. She didn’t know what to do. A part of her, the traitorous side, wanted to put her arms around him. She wanted to hold him close and vow that they would not lose this child.

  But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. To do so would open her up for more heartbreak—

  “When I went to the foundling home, they’d almost forgotten he was there,” Wright said, his voice low. “I demanded they find him. Someone had placed him in a closet because of his crying. No one knew how long he’d been in there. His clothes were filthy and he was just about as thin as he is now.”

  “That’s a cruel way to treat a baby.”

  “That’s life f
or those who have no one to protect them.” He looked at Gillian. “But he survived them. And I realized that Fate had seen I’d be called home to find and keep him safe. I can’t lose him. If I do, the world won’t make sense.”

  Gillian closed her eyes. He was not going to chip away at her defenses, but it was going to be hard.

  “Go to bed,” he said. “You look tired.”

  “So do you.”

  He smiled. She wished he wouldn’t. She liked him when he smiled.

  “We are going to win,” she suddenly promised him. “Someday, Anthony is going to be a chubby, happy baby. And a headstrong one,” she added for good measure. “But we must be patient.”

  “I have patience,” he answered.

  “So have I.”

  And there it was, a truce between them. Built upon a mutual desire to help a baby fight for his life.

  For right now, that was enough.

  “You need to return to bed,” Wright told her.

  “Why don’t you sleep and I’ll take my turn watching him,” she answered.

  He shook his head. “He’s going to sleep for a while. You were right. He was hungry. The tenseness seems to have left his body.”

  Gillian placed her hand on Anthony’s abdomen. It didn’t feel as full and tight. “The colic will be back.”

  “We’ll beat it,” Wright assured her.

  She rose to her feet. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night again,” he reminded her.

  “Yes,” she agreed, suddenly feeling awkward. She was accustomed to being the one having to do the extra duty. It pleased her that he wasn’t like his parents and expected others to do for him.

  The earlier angry words still rang in her ears…but they didn’t seem to matter so much any longer. Not in the face of Anthony’s battle for life.

  She would keep her distance from Wright, and at the end of thirty days, she’d leave. She had to. She wanted a man in her life who loved her.

  And what she’d just witnessed was that Brian Ranson was capable of love.

  He just didn’t love her.

  Thirty days now seemed like an eternity.

  Chapter Twelve