She had eventually fallen into an exhausted slumber sometime during the early hours of this morning, only to be woken by Maxim coming to say his goodbye to Ralph.
The son he was not even aware he had.
It was time for Heather to face the demons of doubt that plagued her and tell Maxim the truth.
After which she would accept whatever decision he made regarding the future—
And if he should want to take Ralph away from her?
She could not bear it. Would be utterly destroyed by the loss of her son. Yet to continue to keep the truth from Maxim was equally as unbearable…
“Come outside with me.” Maxim lightly touched Heather’s arm as indication he knew she was awake. “Ralph has fallen back to sleep,” he added gently as she remained unmoving.
Heather reluctantly opened her eyelids, the first indication she had that her lashes were wet and tears were falling softly down her cheeks. And the reason Maxim had known she was no longer sleeping.
His expression was as gentle as his tone. “Come with me so that we might say goodbye to each other in private.” He gave a pointed glance toward Jane as the nursemaid began to stir on the cot.
Heather’s throat tightened at the thought of saying goodbye to Maxim at all. She had done so once and not seen him again for almost a year. Would Maxim again depart her life and Ralph’s, but this time with no intention of ever returning?
“Sit with Ralph for me,” Heather requested of Jane as the young girl sat up fully awake on the cot.
Heather was so very aware of Maxim as she preceded him from the bedchamber. As she had always been physically aware of him.
“We need go no further,” he murmured once they were standing together in the hallway outside Ralph’s bedchamber and the door softly closed behind them. “I wish you to know that once I am back in London, I shall be informing Stonewell and the Prince Regent you are not the lady they are looking for.”
Heather blinked. “But you have no evidence to substantiate that claim.”
“Were you lying earlier when you told me you are not the spy we are looking for?”
“No,” she said sharply.
He nodded. “Then that is enough reason for me to inform them of such.”
Her brows rose. “On my word alone?”
“Yes.”
Heather felt a return of that tightness in her chest. “I have been known to lie by omission on occasion.”
“All of us do,” he acknowledged evenly. “I lied by omission six years ago by allowing you to believe I was returning to my regiment rather than going behind enemy lines on a mission and then allowing myself to be captured.”
And I lied when I married your father in your absence and did not tell you then, nor since, that Ralph is your son.
The words reverberated in Heather’s head, demanding to be spoken. Demanding to be heard.
“But I did not come to Ralph’s bedchamber to open up old wounds,” Maxim dismissed briskly at her silence. “I wished only to say goodbye to him.”
But not to her, Heather noted.
“I am leaving Treganon House and Cornwall within the hour,” Maxim continued. “Richards will follow tomorrow morning, if that is not an imposition.”
Tell him.
Tell him.
Much as Heather tried, the words seemed to have become lodged in her throat. She knew those words would irrevocably change her own and Ralph’s lives forever.
“Ralph will heal quickly.” Maxim placed a reassuring hand on her arm as he obviously mistook the reason for her continued silence. “In fact, I guarantee that within two days, he will be champing at the bit, wanting to be allowed out of the house,” he added affectionately.
Heather shook her head. “The doctor has said because it is a head injury, Ralph must rest in bed for several days.”
Maxim smiled. “I wish you luck with that.”
“Will you not stay a little longer, Maxim?” The words burst forth without Heather even being aware they had formed in her brain.
“No.” His expression had turned grim. “I think the sooner I inform Stonewell of your innocence, then the sooner he can inform the Prince Regent. After which I can be done with this whole business.”
Her innocence?
Heather was not innocent. Of treason, yes, but she was guilty of something much more damning.
“Do not fret, Heather.” One of Maxim’s hands curved warmly about her cheek. “I give you my word you will hear no more on this subject.”
“But—” Her gaze sharpened. “What did you mean, ‘you can be done with this whole business’?”
His gaze became bleak. “It is my intention to resign as an agent for the Crown as soon as I return to London.”
“Why?”
His hand dropped back to his side. “It is perhaps something I should have done five years ago.”
“Because you were captured and tortured by the French?”
“Because I allowed myself to be captured by the French,” he corrected.
“Did you jump up and down, waving your arms in the air, shouting ‘capture and torture me’?” Heather snapped.
He gave a rueful smile at such nonsense. “Of course I did not.”
“And the mission you went there to carry out?”
“Finished by one of Stonewell’s other agents.”
“Successfully?”
“Yes.”
“Did the torture you suffered succeed in making you reveal secrets you should not have?”
His jaw tightened. “Absolutely not.”
“Then you have nothing to reproach yourself for.”
“I failed, Heather—”
“You did not fail, Maxim,” she insisted. “You were captured, and you suffered for it for many long months. You still bear the scars upon your body to prove it, and the nightmares that haunt your dreams. Did Stonewell consider you had failed in your mission?” she continued determinedly as Maxim would have spoken. “Did the Prince Regent?”
He sighed. “No.”
“Did any of your friends?”
“No.”
Confirming The Sinners were all agents for the Crown? It appeared so to Heather. “Who helped you to escape from prison?” Because someone had; otherwise, Maxim would still be a prisoner. Or dead. A thought that made Heather’s blood run cold.
“Other agents.”
The Sinners, Heather believed. “If you resign, what will you do instead?”
Maxim sighed again. “I have other estates besides this one in need of my attention. Perhaps I will even take my seat in the House.” He shrugged. “I also have my club, and friends I might spend time with in London. Do not worry yourself about me, Heather,” he continued briskly. “I have much to keep me busy, if I wish it.”
Was she really going to allow Maxim to leave here, with the obvious intention of never coming back, without her having told him the truth?
Fresh tears stung her eyes. “Ralph will miss you.”
Only Ralph would miss him, Maxim acknowledged heavily. He knew now he loved this woman to the point of madness, had no doubt he would always love her. But if she had loved him once, she no longer did. It was another reason, the main reason, why he needed to leave. He had no wish to continue hurting Heather by his very presence in the house she considered her home.
He gave a pained frown. “With your permission, I would like to write to Ralph occasionally.”
“You do not need my permission—” She broke off as her emotions appeared to get the better of her, the tears once again falling down her cheeks.
“I am causing you distress with this conversation, as I caused you upset by coming here at all.” Maxim stepped back and away from her. “I will write to Ralph, and you may decide whether or not to give him my letters—”
“I do not wish you to go!”
Maxim drew in a ragged breath. “I have already outstayed my welcome.” Mainly because there had been no welcome here for him in the first place. His actions sinc
e his arrival had done nothing to endear him to Heather. His cruelty. His having forced her response to his lovemaking. His initial lack of faith in her innocence as a spy.
He appreciated Heather’s positive reaction to knowing of his capture and torture by the French. Her belief he had not failed at anything. But it was not enough reason for him to stay and continue to disrupt her life of peace here with Ralph. He loved Heather too much to cause her another moment of discomfort.
He gave a shake of his head. “It is really better for all of us if I go now.”
“No!”
He gave a pained frown at her vehemence. “Heather—”
“Ralph is your son!”
Heather only had time to see the shock on Maxim’s face before tiredness and the strain of the day and night finally caught up with her and the darkness engulfed her.
Chapter 15
Maxim felt numb as he sat beside Heather’s bed waiting for her to wake from her faint. He’d carried her to her bedchamber after catching her in his arms as she fell.
Ralph was his son.
He had no idea, with Ralph’s birthday next month, how that was even possible, but nor did he doubt Heather’s words.
Ralph is my son.
The knowledge opened up more questions than it answered.
Was it because Heather was expecting Ralph that she had agreed to marry his father?
Was the unexpected pregnancy, and Maxim’s disappearance, why Heather had hated him for so many years?
Was this also the reason for the anger he had felt emanating toward him from Heather’s parents the day they’d visited them to collect Ralph and bring him home to Treganon House?
If Maxim had not disappeared for almost a year, he and Heather might have been the ones who had married six years ago. They could have celebrated together the birth of their son and would still be happily married to each other, possibly with more children, a brother and a sister for Ralph.
The thought of that being true was enough to cause Maxim to bend over at the waist at the force of the physical pain that tightened his chest and stole his breath away.
“Maxim…?” Heather queried softly as she woke to the sound of Maxim’s pained groan.
He raised his head but remained bent over, his arms wrapped about his waist. “How are you feeling?”
How was she feeling? If Heather remembered correctly, and she was sure she did, before she fainted she had told Maxim he was Ralph’s father. No doubt this was the reason for his pained expression. His eyes were dark pools of anguish, grooves etched beside his eyes and mouth.
“It was only a faint following the strain of the day,” she dismissed as she pulled herself up against the pillows, not quite able to meet Maxim’s gaze. She was afraid of what she might see there. “Six years ago, I was nineteen years of age, had realized I was expecting your baby, and it terrified me.” She swept her tongue across dry lips. “My father spoke to your father, and James traveled to London to speak with you, as you had not returned to Cornwall as we expected you would. He was told, I have no idea by whom, that you were away fighting and not expected back for some months.”
He nodded. “They would not have been allowed to tell him I was a prisoner of the French.”
Was that accusation Heather could hear in his tone? She had no idea, and a quick glance at Maxim’s face showed he still looked anguished rather than anything else. “I am sorry, Maxim. So very sorry.” Her voice broke emotionally.
“You married my father.”
“He was gracious and kind enough to marry me,” she corrected. “You could not be found, the babe was growing bigger inside me— None of us knew what else to do!” Her words were a plea for his understanding.
Maxim rose abruptly to cross the room and stand in front of the window, looking out as dawn began to break. “Why did no one tell me the truth once I returned to England?”
“James wanted to. I persuaded him he should not. We were married in the eyes of the law and God,” she added as Maxim remained looking out the window. “Nothing and no one could change that.”
“Did you love him?”
Rather than continue to stare at Maxim’s rigid and uncompromising back, she glanced down to where her fingers were pleating the bedsheet over and over again. “I liked and respected James immensely, and I hope he learned to like and care for me too. But no, I was never in love with him, nor he with me. He loved your mother still till the day he died. He only married me because he wanted to give Ralph legitimacy and your family name.”
“To do that, he must have lied about Ralph’s true birth date.”
“Yes.”
“Did you and my father share a bed?”
“There has only ever been you, Maxim,” she acknowledged huskily. “Only you,” she repeated softly.
Maxim turned slowly, his face pale. “Why?”
Heather drew in a shaky breath. “I was a married woman with a young son. I would never have betrayed my marriage vows. And since—well, since James died, I have concentrated my devotion on Ralph and the estate and tenants.”
A nerve pulsed in Maxim’s clenched jaw. “Do you hate me?”
“No. No!” she repeated vehemently. “Oh, do not misunderstand me, I tried to hate you. Believed you had used me that summer and then abandoned me. I have been angry and hurt, but I could never quite bring myself to hate you.” She knew she spoke the truth. Much as she had tried to hate Maxim for his believed betrayal, she had never quite managed to do so.
Because she had always loved him.
Would always love him.
No matter what Maxim decided should happen next.
Maxim stared at Heather as if he had never seen her before. And perhaps he had not.
The young woman he had spent the summer with six years ago had been headstrong and fearless.
The woman, the countess, he had met a year later, had been cold and haughty.
The widow he came here to visit a week ago had been equally as haughty, but that haughtiness had been tinged with a deep sadness rather than coldness. A sadness Maxim had attributed to her having loved, and now lost, his father.
The Heather he looked at now was none of those things.
She was more.
A woman of substance and loyalty. A widow who had never betrayed her husband, no matter what the circumstances of their marriage. A mother who loved her son fiercely. A devoted daughter and sister. A mistress who treated her servants with the respect they deserved. A friend and helper to all the tenants living on the estate.
She was also the woman Maxim knew he would love to his last breath.
He swallowed. “What happens now?”
Heather gave a shake of her head. “That is for you to decide.”
Because despite the fear she must have of possibly losing Ralph, she had still told Maxim he was Ralph’s father.
It was time, past time, for Maxim to put aside his own fears and be as honest with her as she had been with him.
He crossed the room to stand beside the bed, where she lay pale and uncertain. “Never fear that I will ever try to take Ralph away from you.”
She looked up at him then, her beautiful green eyes awash with tears. “But he is your son.”
“I will never take him away from you,” Maxim repeated firmly. “I would like to share him with you, but I will never attempt to take him from your side or his home here.”
She shook her head. “I have already thought of us sharing him, but it would be too confusing for Ralph to be shunted back and forth between the two of us—”
“Not if we were married and living in the same house.”
Heather stared up at him. “You are talking of a marriage of convenience, like the one I had with your father?”
“No.”
A frown creased her brow. “I do not understand…”
The last of the barriers Maxim had built about his emotions for his own protection crumpled into dust at his feet. He now wished to prostrate himself in front of
Heather and beg her, if necessary, to give him the opportunity to love and care for her and Ralph.
Instead, he fell to his knees beside the bed—something he had assured Wessex he would never do for any man or woman, but which he would happily do for Heather, again and again, if necessary—before taking one of her hands in his own. “I loved you six years ago and would have come back to you if I could. I have loved you all the years since. I love you now. I would deem it the highest honor if you would consent to be my wife and the woman I will love, along with our son and any other children we might have, for all the days of my life.”
Had Heather, like Ralph, hit her head when she fell into a faint? Because Maxim could not be saying these things to her. Could he?
“I am not asking that you return that love now,” Maxim added gruffly. “But I am asking for the opportunity to show you how much I love you, in the hope that one day, you might learn to feel the same way about me.”
That she might one day learn to love him?
Heather drew in a deep and steadying breath, holding Maxim’s gaze as she answered him. “I loved you six years ago. I have loved you for all the years since. I love you now. I would deem it the highest honor if you would be my husband and allow me to love you and our son for all the days of my life.”
Maxim’s fingers gripped hers even more tightly, and tears welled in those dark gray eyes. “How can you possibly love me still?”
“How can I not?” she came back firmly. “You are honorable and true to your family, friends, and country. A war hero, whether anyone but me knows it or not. You already love Ralph, despite not knowing he is your son. You continued to love me, even though all evidence pointed to my only having married your father for his title and wealth. You were willing to defend me to any and all who might accuse me of treason, even if it had transpired I was the one who betrayed England. How can I not love you, Maxim?” she repeated emotionally.
A tear slid unchecked down the harshness of his cheek. “I never want to be apart from you for so much as a single day ever again.”
Her smile was tremulous. “Or I you.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Marry me, Heather. Be my wife and make me the happiest man alive. Please!”
Wicked Deception Page 13
