“Worried?” Edward asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“No.” He frowned into his cognac. “Terrified.”
“You should be.” There was no teasing in his former colonel’s voice now, no sarcasm. “You’re about to gain a family.”
As he watched Thomas lean across the billiards table to take a second shot, Grey felt his throat tighten with emotion. He’d dreamt about having this since he was a boy but never truly thought he ever would. To be part of a family with a wife, brother, child—although he wasn’t the father, in his gut he felt as if the baby were his, already loving it as much as any father could. Good God, he shook from the enormity of it all.
“If you’re worried about Chatham and the duchess, you should know that they’re coming around,” Edward confided in a voice low enough so Thomas couldn’t hear that they were talking about his parents.
Grey glanced at him over the rim of his glass. “Is that so?”
Edward nodded. “Her father no longer wants to kill you.”
“Well.” He took another swallow and answered wryly, “That’s something, I suppose.”
“Makes for less interesting family dinners, however.” Edward clapped his shoulder. “He won’t stand in your way now.”
Nothing stood in his way now. He would see to that. He would marry Emily and have a family with her.
And yet…
“I know she was lying before, the reason she gave for refusing my proposal, but damnation, Edward, she’s not wrong,” he admitted quietly, staring down into his brandy. “My past can only cause problems for her and the baby.”
“That’s not true.”
“She’s the daughter of a duke—”
“A widow,” Edward reminded him.
“Who might be delivering the next Marquess of Dunwich as we speak,” Grey countered grimly. “And I’m a former army officer and son of no one, with a well-honed reputation for being a rake.”
“You’re a major. That counts for a lot.”
He grimaced. “Not enough, not when that’s all I am. If I had a family name to go with rank, if I were the second or third son of a peer or a landed gentleman…”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. There was no point in contemplating what could never be. Viscountess Henley was right—he’d made a fine life for himself, a far better one than he ever should have had, and he had no right wishing for more. But what he found himself wishing for more than anything was to make Emily happy, and he wanted to prove to her that he deserved her. In every way.
But his chest burned with the impossibility of it. A man couldn’t change his past. God knew he’d spent his entire life trying to do just that.
“You’re more than you think. A major with enough money to keep her in comfort, the hero who saved her life—”
“An orphan,” he admitted grudgingly. “I lied about being a blacksmith’s son.”
A dark flicker of surprise registered on Edward’s face. Only for a moment, but in that beat, when his friend’s eyes narrowed on him, Grey saw betrayal.
“I had no choice.” He glanced away toward Thomas on the far side of the room, avoiding the accusation he knew he’d see on Edward’s face. “I had to lie to you, to Thomas—to everyone—because it was the only way to make a life for myself. I never would have gotten into the Dragoons as an orphan.”
“It would have made no difference to me, you know that. Or to our friendship.”
He shook his head. “I would never have made it to Spain in the first place if I’d told the truth.” He’d still be a groom in the Henley stables. No—he’d have been dead on the street before he reached fifteen. “Thomas doesn’t know.”
“Does Emily?”
He gave a small nod and couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips. “She knows exactly who I am, but the brat loves me anyway. Can you believe it?” And that, more than any other reason, was why he loved her.
“Then that is all you need.” Edward gave him a knowing look and tapped his glass against Grey’s.
Thomas sauntered across the room toward them. “What are you two talking about?”
“I was in the middle of calling Grey out for being a damned liar,” Edward informed him matter-of-factly.
“I see.” Resting the cue against his thigh, Thomas leaned back against the arm of one of the red leather chairs lining the wall and waved his hand commandingly. “Then by all means, continue.”
With a growl, Grey rolled his eyes. “If you two don’t stop—”
A scream cut through the house. A high-pitched and pain-filled female cry.
Grey’s blood turned to ice, and he started toward the door.
Thomas shot out the cue stick, blocking his path and stopping him. “No,” he said simply but forcefully.
Angrily, he knocked the cue away. “Get out of my—”
“No.” Thomas stood, pulling to his full height and reminding Grey of the headstrong, reckless cavalry officer he knew in Spain. Right before he threw himself into a bar fight. “You’re staying right here.”
Grey’s dark gaze slid between the two men, noticing how Edward had also shifted to place himself between him and the door. So that was why they’d insisted he join them in the billiards room five hours ago. It wasn’t just to keep him distracted; it was also to keep him from bursting into the birthing room. By physical restraint, if necessary.
“Grey,” Edward said with incredible calmness, exchanging his still-full glass of cognac for Grey’s empty one, “why don’t you pace some more?”
He flinched as another scream sounded, then nodded faintly as the blood drained from his face. He’d pace—yes, that was exactly what he’d do. But his legs shook with each stride he took, and the damned room wasn’t long enough for a proper pace, forcing him to slow in frustration with each turn.
As the agonizing minutes dragged past, he ran a hand through his hair and considered charging the door anyway. But Thomas and Edward had moved to stand near it, like two sentinels flanking either side, and with those two men keeping guard, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting to Emily.
How on earth could women bear going through this? He couldn’t remember a single time in battle when he’d been more on edge, more terrified, his heart pounding more fiercely than it was right now. Never. He never wanted to go through this again. He didn’t think he’d be able to survive it a second time.
Then the town house fell quiet. He stopped, freezing in mid-stride, and the terrible silence and stillness that followed turned even more terrifying than her screams. He held his breath, straining to catch any sound, sense any movement in the house around them—
And then it came, so soft and faint that he almost couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing…A baby. Its cries grew in volume and intensity until there was no mistaking its new presence in the world.
Thomas patted him on the back and grinned. “Congratulations, Grey,” he said with affection. “You’re a father.”
Collapsing into a nearby chair, he took a deep breath and stared down at his hands, only to discover that he was shaking harder now than he had before he heard the cries. Good God. A baby. Emily’s baby.
He truly was a father.
Kate Westover appeared in the doorway, her face tired and drawn. Glancing around the room, she spotted her husband, and the look of love that passed between them made Grey catch his breath. It was the same look Emily gave him in quiet moments when she thought no one was watching. Without a word, Edward went to her side and affectionately squeezed her hand.
Then the exhaustion on the duchess’s face melted into a soft smile as she gazed up at her husband. “The baby is small but healthy,” she told them. “He’s going to be just fine.”
He…Emily gave birth to a son after all. But the thought barely registered before Grey’s chest tightened with worry. He shot out of the chair and hurried toward her. “How’s Emily?” he asked.
“Exhausted.” Facing him, Kate furrowed her brows slightly with worry, and Edwa
rd’s hand tightened around hers. “There were some complications.”
Oh God. If anything happened to Emily…“What kind of complications?” Grey demanded.
Not releasing Edward’s fingers, she rested her free hand gently on Grey’s arm. “Emily is small, and it was her first child,” she said gently in a calming voice. “It was a hard birth for her, but she’s going to be fine.”
Grey blew out a deep breath, his shoulders sagging with relief. Emily was going to be fine—Emily and the baby were both going to be fine. Thank God.
His chest swelled with love, and he longed to hold her. He started past Kate for the hallway, but her fingers tightened around his shirtsleeve, his jacket long ago shed in one of the first rounds of pacing. She stopped him.
“Give Emily time to rest.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “When she’s ready, I’m certain she’ll want to see you.”
He hesitated, glancing down the hall. He didn’t want to wait any longer, not when he’d already been waiting over five hours.
“You stay here, all of you.” Her eyebrow arched in warning, expressing how well she knew the three men gathered around her and how much trouble they could cause. Especially when they were together. “I’ll come for you when she’s ready.”
With an affectionate squeeze to his arm, Kate left to return to Emily.
Edward placed his hand on Grey’s shoulder and drew him back into the room. “A small celebration is in order.” He withdrew cigars from his jacket breast pocket and passed them to Thomas and Grey.
Thomas grabbed the cutter from the fireplace mantel and snipped off the end of his cigar. “It’ll soon be your turn to be a nervous father, Colonel, pacing at the birth.” He tossed the cutter.
Edward caught it one-handed. “I’ll damn well handle it better than Grey, certainly.”
Distracted, Grey let the jab pass without comment. They would continue the game of taking shots at him all night, he knew. Just as he knew he was due each barb for how publicly he’d eschewed domesticity in the past, how mercilessly he’d teased Edward when he fell in love with Kate, and how he’d teased him even more when he discovered that they were expecting their first child. But his thoughts were with Emily.
He absently lit his cigar in the lamp and watched the tip glow red. The delivery was over, and she’d given birth to a marquess. Nothing would ever be the same for her. Her life could no longer be her own. Now she was responsible not only for her son but also for his title, his estates, his fortune…and all three hundred years of family history and social expectation accompanying it. And she didn’t deserve to have that responsibility made harder by shadows of his past.
“Do you plan on smoking that cigar, Grey, or are you just going to stand there and watch it burn to ash?”
He glanced up and found Thomas grinning at his expense, so he popped the cheroot between his teeth. His chest warmed at the thought that Thomas would truly be his brother once he married Emily. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Emily tolerates you.”
“Ironically,” her brother returned the volley with a teasing smile as he leaned back against the wall, “I was just thinking the same about you.”
Grey’s teeth sank into the cigar. Unwittingly, Thomas had no idea how much his teasing jab cut to the quick. What could a former cavalry officer and War Office agent offer her that she’d need or want now? Emily claimed she loved him just as he was, but she deserved more.
And damnation, he was going to give it to her. Flinging his cigar into the fireplace, he stalked toward the door.
Thomas straightened, puzzled. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” he answered shortly. “There’s someone I have to find.”
“Tonight? At this hour?”
“Yes.” He glanced backward at his two best friends as he strode from the room. “And tell Emily that I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
Grey pounded his fist against the front door of the dark town house.
“Mind your manners!” The old butler opened the front door and scowled out at him in the light of a small candle. Obviously not expecting visitors at this hour, the man had made a halfhearted attempt to dress in his uniform jacket but still wore his nightshirt and slippers beneath. “You’re waking the dead, blast it!”
“I need to speak to the viscountess,” Grey demanded.
“It’s past midnight.” The man furrowed his bushy gray brows together, peeved at having been woken from his sleep, and began to close the door. “Come back in the morning at a proper hour!”
“I need to see her now.” Slapping his hand against the door to hold it open, Grey glared down at the butler. “Tell her Major Nathaniel Grey is here. I am certain she will want to see me.”
The butler hesitated. Grey knew the man was weighing in his mind the decision of whether to send him away until morning, fearing he might be there for an important reason, or go upstairs and wake the dowager. Neither choice was appealing at half past midnight.
“Her ladyship is abed,” the butler protested. “If this can wait until morning—”
“It cannot.” He strode past the old butler into the marble foyer. “Send her maid up to wake her. I’ll wait here.”
“Sir, I insist! You must return in the morning.”
“Grimsby,” a female voice called out from the landing, “who is it?”
Grey turned to look up the curving staircase at Lady Henley. Even in the middle of the night, even wearing a dressing robe, the dowager exuded an imperialness that would have awed half the ton. And undoubtedly had at some point in her eighty years of life.
Odd, then, that Grey was most likely one of the few people in London whom the old woman could not intimidate. “I need to speak with you.”
“It is the middle of the night.” She tightened the belt cinched around her waist. “Must we do this now?”
“Yes.”
She arched an elegant brow. “A proper gentleman would call at a reasonable hour.”
“I’m not a proper gentleman, though, am I?” He pinned her with a hard gaze. “Unless I am after all.”
With a slight hesitation, understanding the full meaning behind his cryptic words, she pursed her lips and nodded curtly. “You can wait in the drawing room. I shall be down in a moment.”
She disappeared back into the shadows of the first floor, Grey assumed to dress properly before heading into the battle that awaited her.
“This way, sir.”
He followed Grimsby into the drawing room and waited while the old butler lit the candles, then stirred up the fire. It was clear from every grudging move the man made that he disliked being woken in the middle of the night.
“Thank you,” Grey said quietly when the butler straightened away from the hearth and then shuffled out of the room, presumably to hurry back to his quarters before her ladyship could send for tea and biscuits.
But there was a decanter of scotch on the side table, and that would do far better than tea for what was to come tonight. Without waiting for an invitation, he poured himself a glass.
“Pour me one as well,” the viscountess ordered as she walked regally into the room. It hadn’t taken her long to don a morning dress and pull up her silver-gray hair.
He obliged and poured scotch into a second glass, then held it out to her. “You know why I’m here, then?”
“Why else would you pound on my door at midnight, Nathaniel?” She eyed him cautiously over the rim of her glass. “I heard what you did this evening, by the way, how you saved Emily Matteson’s life. The rumors are already circling through Mayfair.”
That didn’t surprise him, knowing how much the society hens loved juicy bits of gossip. “She had the baby.” With a faint smile, he swirled the scotch. “A boy.”
“Well, then, here’s to the new marquess.” She lifted her glass slightly in a toast, then took a large swallow. The tough old woman could handle her liquor better than most men he knew. “Lady Emily is well, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” She gave him a long, assessing look, then turned to sit on one of the chairs before the fire, gesturing for him to take the other. “They will promote you, you know. For saving her life and the life of the littlest marquess.” Then she emphasized, “Colonel Grey.”
“No, they won’t. I’m leaving the War Office,” he informed her.
“They will,” she corrected with firm certainty. “And a nice position in London for you as well.”
The way she said that pricked at him, and he clenched his teeth. “Because of your doing, then.”
“Don’t be foolish, my boy. You’re far too intelligent for such nonsense.” She pointed a finger at the chair in a silent command and scowled when he didn’t obey. “Of course, it was my doing. As soon as I’d heard what you’d done, I contacted Lord Bathurst to make certain he knew how valuable an agent you are.”
“What else has been your doing over the years?” His jaw tightened. “The position offer in Spain, my rank in the cavalry, being assigned to the First Dragoons…or did it start even before then with my very first job as a stable boy?”
“You were always an excellent horseman and a dedicated soldier. I merely put in a good word for you along the way. There’s no sin in that.”
“Not in that,” he challenged. Finally, he sat, and the two of them stared at each other like two enemies sizing up each other before battle. “But there was sin before that, wasn’t there?”
She said nothing, but when she raised the glass to her lips, he saw her hand tremble.
He leaned forward. “Tell me,” he ordered.
“You’ve made a fine life for yourself,” she commented, and he noted that she didn’t deny the accusation. “Why does the past matter now?”
“Don’t be foolish,” he echoed her words. “You’re far too intelligent for such nonsense.”
Along Came a Rogue Page 28
