by Jane Lark
“Give him more time. He will come about I’m sure.”
Ellen nodded, and then kissed Penny’s cheek before she turned to Edward.
It had been difficult introducing John into his father’s family, but it was right. He’d visited them thrice, staying with the Earl’s family for a night or two. It had done John good to know people who spoke of his father. But John had been angry because he could not understand why he’d not been allowed to meet them before.
Ellen looked at her son. He’d taken Mary Rose from Robert and was standing by the hearth talking to him. Ellen’s heart filled with pride. One day he would be a Duke.
“Ellen, my dear child.” Ellen’s thoughts came back to the moment as her mother, with tears in her eyes, drew Ellen into an embrace.
There was a rift in her parents’ relationship now. It would never heal. Her mother could not forgive Ellen’s father, but Ellen also knew her mother found it hard to forgive herself. She felt guilty for not realising the truth.
“Mama, don’t cry, you will have me in tears too and this is a happy occasion.”
“I know, darling, I do. I am happy for you.” Her mother wiped her eyes. “But however am I to make up for what occurred? If I had only known.”
Ellen took her mother’s hands. “I have told you a dozen times, I am happy. I have Edward, John and Mary Rose, I do not worry over what happened, nor hold it against you, Mama, so neither should you.”
“No, my dear, I know, because you have such a good heart.” She squeezed Ellen’s hands. “And you have a good man in Edward. I am proud of you both.”
“I know, Mama.” Ellen kissed her mother’s cheek then let her hands go. She turned to Edward.
Ellen’s gaze stretched to her father. He would not come close. Their relationship over the last year had been distant and strained. Not by her choice, but because he could not bring himself to face her. His apology, still unspoken, was constantly in his eyes. Yet in his every manner he always held himself back. At the moment he was standing alone to one side of the milling family group looking from the tall window out across the lawn.
Ellen sighed and then closed the distance between them. “Father,” she opened as she approached and stopped three feet from his side, her hands clasping behind her back.
His gaze met hers, distant and disengaged. “Eleanor. I am glad for you. I am sure Marlow will want for a son.”
“I am sure he does not care. He has no title or entailment to worry over.”
“No, of course.” Her father’s eyes drifted to John.
“John is doing well, but I wish him to come and stay soon, for a while. He should not lose touch with what he will inherit.”
“He knows his responsibilities. He will do everything he can to make you proud, Father, but you must not set the bar too high for John to reach. He is a good boy but he can never be perfect.”
Her father stepped forward then, as if he would reach for her but stopped himself. “As neither can I, Eleanor, as well you know.”
She tore her gaze from his and looked across his shoulder, emotion stirring. She did not wish him to see it. She had forgiven him as best she could and she tried hard not to think of how he had let her down, but at times it was difficult.
“I will not set the bar too high. I have learned my lesson,” he added on a whisper.
Her eyes came back to his as she heard rare emotion in his voice.
“I—I—” His voice faltered and he took another step towards her, leaving little more than a foot between them. It forced her to look up into his eyes.
“You need not say it, father, I know how you feel.” Her words instantly restored his composure.
“You are too kind to me, Eleanor,” he answered, his eyes searching hers.
He’d aged in the last year and he looked tired.
She didn’t know what to say.
A hand touched her lower back and slid to rest at her waist. Edward’s height and strength settled behind her and his other hand rested on her waist too. She leaned back against him as her father’s gaze lifted to her husband’s.
“I congratulate you both on your good news and you invested wisely, Marlow, I hear your stocks are doing well.”
“Well enough,” Edward answered. “As long as I am able to support my wife in the life she deserves I’m happy. I’m not a greedy man.”
Ellen pressed an elbow into his ribs. He was antagonising her father—Edward enjoyed the occupation even now. He refused to forgive.
He bent and kissed the crown of her head. It was another gesture intended to infuriate her father.
“Well, I am happy that you are happy,” her father dismissed them and walked away.
“Did you have to Edward?” She spun about. “He’d just approached the closest thing I have ever had to an apology from him.”
“If he was a man of any worth, he would just out and say it.” Edward threw a disparaging look at her father’s departing back.
Following her husband’s gaze, Ellen whispered, “Sometimes I feel sorry for him. He is so bound by what he perceives to be the requirements of his station in life, he is incapable of being himself, of just doing something because he wants to, or he can.”
“He is a pompous ass is what he is,” Edward countered.
Ellen slapped at is shoulder in playful rebuttal.
“Do you two never stop canoodling?” Robert’s lazy drawl, stretched from beside them as his palm fell on Edward’s shoulder. “You are far beyond the honeymoon period now.”
“We are in love,” Ellen chimed, pulling away from Edward. Then she turned, rose to her toes and pressed a brief kiss on Robert’s cheek. “An emotion you, Robert Marlow, would not know of, the way you put yourself about. You should stop hell-raising and find yourself a wife, then you would understand.”
In answer she was caught to her brother-in-law’s chest in a rough hug, and a kiss fell on her forehead. Then he let her go but held her hand.
“I shall have you know, Lady Edward, that I fell in love last night, head-over-heels in fact, and the night before that too if I recall.”
She laughed. “But not with the same woman, I do not doubt. You are the worst of rakes, Robert.”
“You wound me, sister. I’m merely working damned hard to ensure my reputation remains beyond my brother’s. I am supposed to be the black sheep. I cannot have his scandal best mine. Besides I’m simply trying out every woman until I find one like you.”
“You rogue.” She pulled her hand from his and smacked his shoulder gently then laid her hand on Edward’s sleeve instead. “You only say that to stir Edward up. Old habits never die, do they?”
Turning to Edward, she finished, “I will leave you two to talk. Mary is due her feed.”
Edward nodded and caught Ellen’s fingers before she walked away, then allowed them to slip free.
“She’s a beauty inside and out, your wife.” Robert spoke as he watched Ellen.
“She is.” Edward looked at Robert. “And loyal to a fault,” he added seeing the genuine affection in his brother’s eyes.
“Rupert apologises for not being able to come, but you know his mother is not well.” Robert changed the subject.
“Yes I know. Ellen wishes us to visit them soon. She has a ridiculous need to ensure all family ties are kept.”
“Even with your disreputable brother,” Robert concluded, his eyes locking with Edward’s, saying the words he’d probably read in Edward’s gaze. Edward smiled. “You are a fortunate man. John is a son to be proud of, your wife is outstanding, your daughter adorable and now your family grows.”
Robert had still never spoken of what had kept him abroad after their father’s death, but in the last year they had become closer, largely due to Ellen’s persistent pressure. She often invited Robert to stay. What amazed Edward was their closeness. She seemed closer to Robert than her sisters sometimes. Edward could not quite fathom it. It did not disturb him though. He knew her heart lay firmly in his own hands. He simply did not underst
and her affection for Robert and his brother accepted Ellen’s advice over anybody else’s.
Still, something silent seemed to eat at Robert. He’d not settled into managing his estates and now he left most of it to his steward while he spent more and more time in town—living life to the full and enjoying excess. Rumours of his affairs were constant and a favourite topic of the gossip columns. If anything, his behaviour had worsened since Edward had married Ellen. Yet when Robert came to stay, he changed. He took pleasure in spending time with the children and he relaxed, he lost his façade around Ellen. Robert’s amazement at the tiny one-week-old Mary Rose had been almost as great as Edward’s. But despite Robert’s liking for the children he showed no sign of settling down and away from them he was no different—brash, arrogant and selfish.
“You could have the same,” Edward eventually responded, studying the way Robert looked at John with Mary Rose and Ellen.
“Only if I could find the right woman,” he answered, and with that he turned away, moving to speak to Edward’s brothers-in-law, as though the conversation was too painful.
~
Later, in bed, Edward pulled his wife back against him into an embrace, her back and bottom curled against his stomach and hips, as his palm rested on her stomach. “When do you think the child is due?” he whispered, still in awe of the miracle a woman’s body could create.
“June, I think.”
“A summer child.” His teeth caught her earlobe, and he heard her breathing slow in rhythm in response, a sigh of pleasure escaping her lips as his hand slipped between her legs.
“John wants a brother. I told him I cannot promise.”
Laughter escaped his throat as she relaxed against him, her legs parting to his touch.
“Then we will promise that if it is not a boy this time, we will try again.”
“I am not your broodmare, Edward,” her voice whispered into the dark, in mock severity.
“No, but when there is such joy in making more, how can you deny me, sweetheart?”
Rolling in his arms, turning to face him, she claimed his mouth, her naked body pressed against his.
“See,” he whispered to her lips as he moved over her, “you cannot. You have never been able to, if I recall correctly.”
“Why would I want to deny you when you give me so much pleasure?” she whispered back, mocking.
This woman was everything to him—still. He buried himself in her warmth.
“Ellen,” he groaned, threading his fingers between hers and pressing her hands into the mattress, “I dare not think what I would be without you.”
The heat intensified to the fire that had always sparked between them and for a while he let it burn, raging though them both in flickering flames. Then he withdrew and knelt upright, resting his buttocks on his heels and smiling down at her.
He’d called her a work of nature’s art that first night. She was, only it was more than visual, it was physical too. She could ease his soul, reduce his anger and fear and she made his life something precious.
He gripped her hips and pulled her body back across the bed, sliding her to him in the age old lock and key fit of man and woman.
“Oh, Edward!” Her hands closed over his and her nails pressed into his skin
She made him feel so feral.
Her fingers clinging to his hands she just let him have his way. Sometimes she’d battle as she’d done on their second coupling, sometimes she’d win. Mostly he just took because she gave so beautifully.
She fell quickly and he followed, riding on the surf. He cried out and felt her catch a hold of his shoulders and pull him down on top of her.
“I love you Edward. I always will.”
He knew. He kissed her brow and then rolled to his back. Her head lay on his shoulder and her body fell across him, one hand splaying over his pectoral muscle and one leg over his. He kissed her hair and felt her breath on his chest. “I love you too, Ellen.” He had loved her ever since she’d gazed at him across the top of a fan, in a smoky gaming-hell, he always would too.
Ellen held him tight. Her life before Edward was now only a dream—a nightmare—which had slipped into murky memory. She kissed his cheek as he drifted into sleep—he had saved her.
And it had all come about from the outcome of a single game of cards, perhaps this life with Edward had always been her real throw of fate.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
