Willoughby 01 - Something About Her

by Jeannie Ruesch

  She hesitated but a second and then nodded. “Of course.” As he sat down, she leaned in slightly. “What is she doing here?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I haven’t the faintest notion. She has not come to London, to my recollection, in years.”

  “Have you spoken with her?”

  “No.”

  “I believe you are about to,” Cordelia informed him. She stared just behind him.

  Michael refused to turn around. If the dowager Duchess felt the need to address him, so be it, but he would not bow and scrape as if she mattered in his life.

  “Ravensdale, have you no greeting for your mother?” The voice was rich, womanly with a harsh edge to it. More familiar than he wanted to admit.

  She appeared in front of them and stared down at him, one eyebrow arched in expectation.

  “Mother. What a surprise.”

  She laughed. “And not a welcome one, from that tone.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked flatly. He had no desire to further extend this conversation. She wouldn’t be here if she did not want something.

  Her still beautiful features pulled together in a frown. “Surely you do not expect me to miss my only son’s wedding, do you?” She reached forward and patted his shoulder. “I was certain my invitation simply got lost in the post.”

  “No. It didn’t.” He refused to bend.

  “Be that as it may,” she said, waving a hand in the air as if to put aside any objection, “I am in town and I most certainly shall attend.” She turned her gaze toward Blythe. “You must be the future Duchess. My deepest sympathies. I hope for your sake that my son does not turn out to be the bastard his father was.”

  Michael heard the gasps of shock, both from Blythe and her sister and from those nearby, whom he knew strained for any tidbit of gossip to carry on. It only mingled with the red haze that colored his gaze.

  “Mother, you would be well advised to steer clear of me and anyone associated with me.” He stood up. “This woman you have embarrassed by your assumptions and insults is Lady Blythe Ashton, Thomas’ widow.”

  The duchess shrugged. “Trifles.” Without another word, she turned in a swirl of burgundy silk and glided to the other side of the room.

  Michael clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to get his emotions under control. Even five minutes in his mother’s presence did nothing but enrage him. He worked hard to stay as far away from her as possible, and fortunately, she seemed no more inclined to be anywhere near him. It had worked quite well for most of his life.

  He could not figure out why she cared to be present at his wedding. She certainly hadn’t cared when he’d married Victoria, Bethie’s mother. So why now?

  “Michael?” Blythe’s sweet voice pulled him from his thoughts and he looked down at her. “Are you all right?”

  He sat back down and reached out for Blythe’s hand. Only after his fingers laced with hers did he realize what he’d done, and he quickly let go and pulled back. “I am sorry.”

  He should go. He obviously couldn’t control his emotions right now, especially since all he wanted was to pull Blythe into his arms and kiss her until they were both senseless with need.

  He needed her. And that urge he fought the hardest.

  But he couldn’t leave either. Not now, not after what had happened with his mother. Any indication of leaving would be construed as retreat on his part, and he refused to allow her even a hollow victory.

  Just then, Blythe stiffened next to him. “Oh, no.”

  He frowned at her. “What is it?” He realized she stared past him at the doorway, and with a sense of dread, he turned to see his betrothed. She stood in the doorway next to her father, staring at them with an injured doe expression. With a small gasp, she turned and fled the room.

  Michael stared a moment at the empty doorway. His bride to be was ever the dramatic one. He knew he should go after her, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to do so.

  “You should go after her,” Blythe said, as if reading his mind.

  “I am certain she is fine.” What he was certain of was yet another scene to be had sometime this evening.

  “She seemed upset.”

  Of that, he had no doubt. But he also was relieved that rather than find her way immediately to cling to his side, she’d gone elsewhere.

  And didn’t that bode disaster for the rest of his life.

  “She shouldn’t—oh well, here she is, in any case.”

  Without thinking, he looked up immediately and saw Abigail heading purposefully in their direction. Her face held a mix of determination and irritation and God knew what else, but Michael knew he didn’t want to deal with yet another scene in the midst of the party.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said quickly to Blythe just as Abigail stopped in front of them.

  “Did I or did I not tell you to stay away?” Abigail said to Blythe, glaring down at her.

  Blythe blinked in surprise. “I…I beg your pardon?”

  “As well you should.”

  “Abigail, that’s enough.” Michael reached out and grasped her arm lightly, but she yanked it away to point a finger in Blythe’s face.

  “I am to be a Duchess. You had best court my favor, or I will ruin you.”

  Michael clamped a hold on her arm and steered her out the closest door, which led to another room. Once in the middle of what appeared to be a study, he let her go.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She crossed her arms. “She offended me.”

  “I don’t care if she insults every member of your family. You will never speak to her that way again.” Fury propelled him closer, until he stood mere inches from her.

  To his everlasting shock, she lurched at him and planted her lips on his. Her arms snaked around his neck and dragged him down, until he could get a strong hold on them and untangle himself as gently as possible. He did not want to hurt her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as he set her gently back.

  “I will be a good wife to you. You won’t need her.” She tried to reach upward again.

  “Stop that!” He held her hands in his own, even as she tried to wriggle closer to him. “Enough!”

  His snap stilled her, and he felt her begin to tremble. Then tears fell from her eyes. “I—I just want to please you. I am sorry for what I said. I shall apologize to Lady Ashton. Please say you’ll forgive me.”

  She leaned into him like a weighted sack of flour, and Michael had no choice but to put his arms around her to hold her up. “You should be home resting. Obviously this is all too much for you.”

  She pulled back and looked at him expectantly. “Truly?”

  “Of course,” he replied, hoping she would simply leave.

  She broke into a smile that brightened her pretty face. “Oh thank you, darling! Thank you!”

  He frowned. “For what?”

  She bustled about the room in a burst of energy. “I shall have Mama pack up our things tonight. She’ll of course stay with us until the wedding.”

  Dread sank in. “I did not mean—”

  “This makes me so happy.” She hurried toward him and planted a quick, noisy kiss on his cheek. “You won’t miss me if I go find Mama? I want to give her the wonderful news and plan for our move over to your home.”

  The headache that had begun the moment his mother entered the room beat a pounding drum in his left temple. Before he could form a single syllable, she had left the room.

  What the hell had just happened?

  ****

  A few hours later, Blythe exited through the door leading to the garden, her arms instantly chilled by the cool air. It seemed she was destined to forever escape parties for a bit of solitude these days.

  She glanced back through the doors for a brief second, her eyes searching the room for—yes, there he was, standing with a group of men. She pulled in a deep breath and wished she was by his side.

  As much as Blythe hated the emotion, envy co
ursed through her blood. She could never marry Michael. She had come to terms with that, or so she had thought.

  But did that mean she couldn’t be with him? The scandalous thought leapt into her brain, and Blythe shook her head to lose it as abruptly. She would not be that woman.

  But she could be. For him.

  No! She shook her head again. It was not her nature, no matter how much she loved him. No matter how much she wanted to be a part of his life. She could not settle to be his mistress. It was wrong on so many levels she didn’t know where to begin.

  Ashamed by even the thought of it, Blythe turned from the patio and headed down a dimly lit path deeper into the gardens. How could she even think of offering herself that way? Love was supposed to make one happy, not utterly miserable.

  No, better that she simply move on with life. Get married to some nice, unassuming gentleman who she could grow to care for. Someone who wouldn’t expect her heart. Maybe she could even have a child.

  She smiled a little. She’d given up on that idea until Michael had entered her life. And she refused to give up on it now. She wanted children.

  Tears pushed suddenly at the back of her eyes. Yes, she wanted children. She wanted Bethie, and children from Michael.

  “Heaven, but I am pathetic tonight,” she muttered to herself, as she turned onto a smaller, side pathway that circled back.

  “Oh!” a feminine squeal followed by a large rustle startled her. Blythe stopped in her tracks.

  “Did you hear that?” the female said.

  “Not a thing,” another person, clearly male, said. More rustling.

  Warmth bathed Blythe’s cheeks as she realized she had inadvertently stumbled upon two lovers trysting. She glanced behind her, trying to find the most delicate way to extricate herself from the situation. She took a few steps back, and stopped when the nearby bushes rustled again.

  “I heard a voice, I’m certain.”

  “Who gives a sod?” the male complained.

  “I do!” she said.

  More rustling and Blythe realized they were coming out of the bushes. Rather than run down the path and risk being seen by them and forced into a highly uncomfortable knowledge, she hurried into the trees on her left and hid behind a tree trunk just out of reach of the lamp light.

  The pair crawled out from the bushes and stood, brushing each other off casually. “I told you this was a singularly bad idea,” the male said. “You’ll never get what you want if you get caught.”

  The woman laughed softly. “Don’t be daft. I already have what I want.” They moved onto the pathway and into the light.

  The gentleman Blythe did not recognize, thank goodness. And the woman—

  Blythe bit her lip to keep her cry of shock from erupting. It couldn’t be. It made no sense whatsoever.

  The couple strolled by, as if they’d only been walking on the path, with no one the wiser.

  But Blythe was certain now. That woman had been Miss Abigail Darlington.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Michael strode to the cabinet at the far end of his parlor and poured himself a draught. He downed it in one gulp, welcoming the fire that leapt down his throat and scorched his stomach. It helped only minimally, however, to reduce the knots that formed links of tension throughout his body.

  It was his bloody wedding day. Shouldn’t he be happy?

  He tried to call to mind an image of his bride.

  Blue-green eyes the color of sea. Honey blond hair that shone in the sunlight.

  Blythe.

  Damnit! He grasped the glass in his hand and lifted it to throw it across the room. He caught the glass just as he started to release it and instead set it down with a thud on the cabinet. He braced his hands against the wall and leaned forward.

  God help him, he saw no way out of this course of action.

  And for what? To preserve the family name his parents had long ago drug through the gutters with their hatred of each other? For his bloody, forsaken, cursed title?

  Ravensdale, the Duke, did his duty. Ravensdale married the woman he was duty-bound toward.

  Michael Ashton, the man, mourned the loss of the woman he truly loved and wished he could find a way out of this mess that didn’t destroy everything.

  He had never understood the difference between the two. Until now. For the first time in his life, the man wanted to take control.

  With a groan of frustration, he poured another liberal draught of brandy and sank onto a nearby couch. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

  “That is not the image of a happy bridegroom.”

  As if his day could not have gotten worse. He opened an eye and glanced at the doorway. “Mother, what are you doing here?”

  Michael realized the insult he did her by not standing, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t invited her, and he didn’t want her here. Not his house, at his wedding. Not in his life.

  “Do not bother to stand, Michael,” she said mockingly as she strolled into the room. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, not a meticulously placed curl out of place. Her light blue gown matched perfectly to her cape and the muff she held in one hand. She’d always reminded him of a statue. Perfection and beauty achieved only by having a heart of stone.

  She steered directly toward the bar at the end of the room and poured herself a drink.

  “Brandy, Mother?” he drawled. “Is it not perhaps a bit early?”

  She looked pointedly at his glass. “Black pot, darling. Black pot.”

  He set the glass down hard enough that the liquid sloshed a bit over the side. “What do you want?”

  She laughed as she raised the glass as if to toast him. “My only son is getting married. Where else would I be?”

  “Forgetting the fact that you were not invited to the wedding?”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “Did you believe I should miss the party of the year? Everyone is congratulating me on your nuptials.”

  He stood, feeling the muscles in his legs tense. “Why should they offer you congratulations? It isn’t as if you’ve had anything to do with my wedding plans.”

  “Au contraire. You are nothing but a breathing testament to your father and me.”

  “This conversation is tedious.” He fisted his hand by his side. Unfisted it. Anything to help relieve the tension that crept up his neck.

  “Your precious betrothed might as well be me, Michael. If not now, then I venture within a month she’ll cuckold you.” She set her empty glass down and moved to seat herself comfortably in a chair. She leaned her head back and laughed. “You are marrying your mother, darling. I am flattered.”

  “Get out.”

  “Throw your mother out on the day of your wedding? Whatever would the gossips say?” She arched an eyebrow. “And we all know that you are propriety’s dearest ally.”

  His anger pushed him forward, until he towered over her chair. “You are nothing to me.”

  Her eyes mocked him. “Nothing? I am a lot of things, Ravensdale, but nothing is not one of them.” She stood, forcing him to take a few steps back. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to speak to your mother this way?” She snorted unladylike. “How silly of me. Your father probably offered you lessons on this very topic. ‘Treat her as if she were less than the food on your plate, dear boy,’“ she offered in a deep imitation voice. “‘Because, by Jove, she is! Regard her as if she is nothing and she shall be nothing.’“

  She leveled her gaze at him. “Would that sound about right?” Without waiting for him to answer, she turned and walked back to the cabinet for another drink. “Your father, may he burn in hell, was a bastard, Michael. It would behoove you not to follow so closely in his footsteps.”

  “Your antipathy for each other was well regarded, Mother. I certainly don’t need a reminder of it.” Images blurred in his mind. Arguments. Strumpets paraded through the house. His mother’s lovers staying for days on end. Screams across hallways. Objects thrown against walls.

  Just like the
glass he’d almost thrown against the wall.

  “Do as you wish,” he told her. “You always have any how.” He turned toward the door. He needed to get dressed, for he was marrying Abigail in just three hours hence.

  “He loved another, too.”

  He stopped in the doorway. “What?”

  She moved behind him, the rustle of her skirts alerting him to her movements. “Your father. He was in love with someone else when we married.”

  He turned around and stared at her.

  She lifted a shoulder. “Believe me, believe me not. It matters little anymore. But it is true. Your father was head over heels in love with Miss Melinda Price, daughter of a banker. She was beyond unacceptable for him to marry. Her father managed his father’s accounts. It was unthinkable that the heir to the Ravensdale throne would marry so far beneath him. And your father, in his youth, was nothing if not accommodating to his father.”

  She met his gaze. “See, your grandfather, may he burn in hell along with your father, was a bastard of the first order, as well.”

  “It would appear it ran in the family.”

  “So it does,” she shot back, her usage of the current tense not going unnoticed.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” He itched to leave. He didn’t want to hear this. He did not want to see the small gleam of humanity in her eyes. Not when he’d spent his entire life believing her to be anything but human.

  “Because you are about to relive the past. And as much as I had thought it would entertain me to watch you become what he was, it has had an opposite effect.” She frowned. “It’s rather irritating, I tell you. But I find I cannot allow you to perpetuate the cycle without the truth behind you.”

  “What truth? I was there, Mother. I saw you flaunt your lovers in Father’s face-in my face. There is no denying any of that.” Or the pain it had caused him. “I lived through the ‘War of the Ravens’ personally.” His voice had risen in strength as all the pain and anger of his childhood came rushing at him. “Did it ever occur to you that I was right there in the middle of it all?”

  She looked at him blankly. “I am not a maternal woman, Michael. I do not seem to have those feelings. Yes, I know you were in the middle of it. But every time I looked at you, I saw him.” She sighed. “And all I felt was hatred.”