Max would be penniless again, homeless and discarded. And this time with his heart in broken shards too small to put back together.
He had lost everything before, when he had little enough to lose. He had laughed it off, cursed at Fate, charged belligerently back to the tables the next night, intent on swinging his luck around. This time . . . this time he was numb. He’d had everything he ever wanted—no, far more—and he’d lost it, through some stupid error that hadn’t even been his doing. How did a man come back from this?
He went inside and dismissed Lawrence. Leave it for tomorrow to tell the man he was being turned off again, let go by another employer who’d risked what he could not afford to lose, and lost everything.
He was standing in his bedchamber—which had been their bedchamber—staring out the window when Bianca finally came home. Her voice echoed in the stairwell, and then her footsteps pounded up. Was she coming to throw him out? Fortune hunter, liar, lunatic . . . which would she call him?
“Max!” She flung open the door and let out a gusty breath. “Thank goodness. There you are.”
“Yes.” Thin puffs of smoke rose over the hill, white against the twilit sky. It was the kilns, firing the first pieces of Wimbourne’s order. He wondered if Bianca would deliver it to the duke herself. Wimbourne would enjoy that. “Here I am.”
“I thought you’d gone to Greta—Hickson said he thought you’d gone that way, but he was wrong . . .” She was gasping for breath between words. “I ran all the way to Ivy Cottage, and then all the way here . . .”
“No,” he murmured. God. Would Mrs. Bentley allow Greta to stay, at least until Max could scrabble together something suitable? He’d have to do it quickly, before Croach got wind of things and realized Max was helpless to stop him from snatching her again.
“You heard—I know you heard what Cathy said,” Bianca said, coming toward him.
“Yes.” He’d read enough law to suspect Richard Mayne was correct. The license had been altered improperly, and that was probably enough to invalidate his marriage. All Bianca would have to say was that she hadn’t wanted to marry him.
And perhaps he shouldn’t fight it. All those things Mrs. Mayne had said about Bianca—that Max had been everything she despised, that she’d only married him to keep control of Perusia, that she had done it all in a mindless fury—those were true.
Silas Croach had also spoken truly when he said Greta belonged to him, under the law. Max hadn’t cared. Greta didn’t want to live with him, and Max had been willing to beat Croach to a cinder to prevent his aunt being forced back into a marriage she didn’t want. He could hardly ask Bianca to stay with him, if she wanted out.
“She’s correct, you know,” he said, watching the smoke dissipate on the breeze. There was a blazing fire below, but a few hundred feet later, nothing remained of it. “About the validity of the license, and hence the marriage.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” she exclaimed. “We’ve been married for more than three months! How can that be invalid?”
“The law cares naught, my dear. If you wish to have it swept away like so many shards of broken pottery”—he flicked his fingers in illustration—“it shall be.”
“Max.” She caught his arm and made him turn to her. “What are you going on about?”
He looked at her face, so beautiful and beloved, so flushed from running after him. “If you want to invalidate the marriage, I won’t protest it.”
“What?” She looked outraged. “Why not? Curse you, don’t tell me you don’t care!”
Gently he laid his hand on her cheek. She clasped his wrist as if she were drowning. “I care,” he said softly. “Too much to hold you, if you want rid of me.”
She flung his hand aside. “Then I expect to hear some sign that you want to stay!”
His temper stirred, and this time, recklessly, he didn’t force it back down. “Do you need more? Have I not shown you all this time?”
“You have,” she said wrathfully. “And you’ve been so bloody patient, waiting for me to get over being hurt about Greta—”
“You saw Croach,” he charged. “You heard what he said about her—about me. Madness is in our blood! How could I tell you that and bring that sort of darkness into your home, your family?”
“Well, I suppose now I see that you don’t think I’m strong enough to hear such news without falling into a fainting fit!”
“Strong enough! You! You, who could run this entire factory and win the cricket match to boot!”
“I bloody well could! And you didn’t trust me!” she shrieked.
Max’s blood was running furiously. He’d never let his temper loose like this. “Didn’t you hear me—I told no one about the madness in my family. I didn’t keep it from you for a laugh, I kept it from you because I thought it would send you screaming in the other direction!”
“I don’t even think she’s mad! You should have told me about her, if nothing else!”
“I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he fired back. “I wanted to put it off until you cared for me, and could overlook it. More fool me!”
“Yes!” She smacked his arm. “Because you’re too big an idiot to see that I do love you, even after you took a piece of my factory and had cleverer ideas for it than I did and risked your life to save Greta and made forty-five in the cricket and told me I’m beautiful when I’m not—”
Max threw up his hands. “I don’t know why I bothered! You’re clearly just as mad as I am! It is the only earthly explanation for why I would allow you to provoke me into this ridiculous screaming argument over how desperately in love with you I am, and always will be, and if you think you’re going to invalidate our marriage, you’re mad, and I’ll fight it ’til the end of my days because we belong together!”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said tonight!” She seized his head and pulled him down for a fierce kiss.
Recklessly he kissed her back. With two steps he pushed her to the wall, clawing up her skirts. She yanked at his breeches, sending a button flying before taking him in her hand, so firmly he gasped.
“Mine,” he growled, hooking her leg around his waist and pulling her higher.
“Mine,” she retorted, pulling the tie from his hair and taking hold of a handful.
He bared his teeth and thrust into her. Bianca curled her legs around his waist and arched her back, and he needed no more encouragement.
Having been wrought to a fever pitch of arousal and passion, both were on the brink. Max felt her come within moments, hot and tight around him, and he reached his own climax instantly, so violent and sudden his vision dimmed.
“I told you,” Bianca panted, shaking in his arms. “Someday we would shout at each other . . .”
Max gave a wheezy laugh. “Our servants must be huddling under the table in abject fear.”
“Oh goodness, let them.” Eyes glowing, she kissed him. “I love you,” she said softly. “I love you, Max, I do. Cathy caught me off guard—”
“I know.” He kissed her back.
“I should have told you sooner,” she went on as his mouth drifted over her eyebrows and temple. “I was so hurt you didn’t tell me about Greta, and I was so frightened those two days you were gone—”
“I was entirely at fault. I will never do that again.”
She pulled his face level with hers. “I was wrong to be so cold to you in the beginning. I agreed to the marriage on impulse, but once it was accomplished, I ought to have made the best of things. Instead—”
“I do not hold anything against you,” he said, laying a fingertip on her lips. “Nothing. I have no stones to cast, having kept a large secret of my own.”
She smiled hesitantly. “Then we shall start anew?”
“Anew?” Max quirked a brow. “And lose all the ground we’ve gained? No, I think we should continue on from this moment, mindful of our own faults and considerate of the other’s sensibilities. What do you say, love? Will you carry on with me,
in spite of our faulty marriage license?”
A slow, enchanting smile curved her lips. “I will. This time pledging my whole heart to you in true love and honesty.”
“And I do pledge my whole heart and honesty to you.” He rested his forehead against hers. “’Til the end of time.”
She kissed him. “That’s a fine start.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Five weeks later
Carlyle Castle
They saw the castle long before they reached it.
Bianca alternated between hanging out the window in astonishment and stealing amazed glances at him. Max, who had seen it before, was content to enjoy her awe.
“And you’re really heir to all this?” she finally asked, settling into the seat beside him. They had been on Carlyle property for almost the last hour, and the castle itself still loomed ahead of them.
“Second,” he said. “A distant cousin, an army man, outranks me. The chances of my ever sniffing a dukedom are vanishingly small, love.”
“This is a vast deal closer than I ever thought to come to one.” She looked out the window again. “We’re here.”
Up close, the castle was even more impressive. The gray stone walls towered above them, and they drove through a narrow stone arch into a courtyard so large, there was a neatly kept garden in the center.
Max stepped down, waiting for the onslaught of tension or apprehension at facing the duchess again, and felt . . . nothing.
Well—not nothing. He felt a burst of pride as Bianca stepped down in her beautiful cream gown from London. They had stopped at an inn a few miles ago to refresh themselves, and Max had had a hard time keeping his hands off her since. She was breathtakingly beautiful, even before she sent him a mischievous glance and wrinkled her nose ever so slightly and sniffed.
He could only smile back at her.
Her hand on his arm, they walked up the shallow steps to the butler standing at the open doors. After showing them to a more handsome guest chamber than the last one Max had inhabited, the butler conducted them through elegant corridors quieted by lush carpets, through a paneled great hall lined with tapestries and paintings, and up a grand staircase of intricately carved stone into what Max privately referred to as the Audience Chamber.
The duchess was waiting there, as plump and gray as Max remembered. Her companion sat quietly behind her, a large ginger cat on her lap. “So,” the duchess remarked, after the introductions had been made, “you certainly did not waste any time, Mr. St. James.”
He bowed. “No, Your Grace.”
Her gaze transferred to Bianca. “You must know about your husband’s connection to Carlyle.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Bianca. She stood erect and gazed forthrightly back at the intimidating duchess. “I was very sorry to hear of your son’s passing. My heartfelt sympathies on your loss.”
The duchess blinked in surprise. “Yes. Thank you. That is very kind, Mrs. St. James.” She turned her head to glare at Max. “I suppose you are here to demonstrate that you have made yourself more respectable.”
He smiled. “I have come to thank you, ma’am. Your generous offer provided the means I needed to do just that. And now, I have come to say, I am no longer in need of your assistance.”
“What?” she demanded after a shocked moment. “What do you say to me, Mr. St. James?”
“I am determined not to be a burden, Your Grace. You need not pay the allowance you offered me the last time I was here.”
She pursed up her lips in displeasure. Max was sure he knew why; now she had no leverage over him. “As you wish, sir. Far be it from me to force an income upon a man!” She turned back to Bianca. “You are of the Staffordshire Tates, are you not?”
“Yes, ma’am. My father is Samuel Tate, of Perusia.”
“Hmph.” The duchess looked at her with unwilling interest. “My solicitor tells me you work in the factory.”
Max could see how surprised Bianca was, but he doubted the duchess did. His wife was as poised as ever, confidently answering questions from the older woman. “I do, ma’am. I formulate the glazes used in our finest wares.”
“Glazes!”
“I recently developed a brilliant scarlet red glaze. We have only just begun filling orders for it.”
Again the duchess’s lips pursed. “And what is your part in this endeavor, Mr. St. James?”
“I have taken it upon myself to arrange viewings for interested parties who might wish to order a service of dinnerware,” he said. “His Grace the Duke of Wimbourne recently ordered thirty settings.” He paused, then added, “Wimbourne and I were at Oxford together.”
“Wimbourne!” The duchess made a face. “Not even married! What use has he got for a dinner service?” She leaned forward. “I want to see these dishes. If you came all this way, I expect you’ve brought a few.”
Max smiled. “Yes, ma’am. We have indeed brought a tea service in the new scarlet glaze, and hope you will accept it as our thanks for your generosity.”
That had been Bianca’s idea. “Without her, we would not be here, together,” she’d told him, and Max had packed up the service without another word. If it came down to thanking the duchess for enabling him to approach Samuel Tate with his audacious marriage and business proposal, Max would send a new service to Carlyle House every year, and bear the expense himself.
It seemed to astonish the duchess. “Well,” she said, then again, “Well. That is thoughtful of you. Miss Kirkpatrick, see to it.” The companion silently rose and slipped out. Max had left the crate, each glittering ruby piece nestled in a black velvet box, with the butler. Max and Bianca were invited to sit, and the duchess quizzed them about the factory, Bianca’s family, and Max’s role in it.
Unbidden he told her about Greta. In the month since being rescued, his aunt had improved a great deal. She spoke mainly English now, had put on some healthy weight, and took long rambling walks in the country with Frances and a pair of the handsome footmen. She was returning to the woman Max remembered, and he knew it was due to Bianca and her family, who had taken her in with unfaltering support and kindness.
The duchess was gratifyingly angry over Greta’s treatment. “A madhouse!” she declared indignantly. “How dare he! If he returns and gives you any trouble at all, I trust you will send Mr. Edwards after him. Edwards knows how to tear a person apart without leaving a mark.”
“Thank you, ma’am, I shall bear it in mind.”
Miss Kirkpatrick returned some time later, followed by a maid carrying a large tray with the new tea service on it, replete with cakes and pastries. “Ah!” The duchess gazed with interest on the teacups and the teapot, one of the finest Perusia had ever produced, with a fluted rim and embossed lattice-work handle. “I commend you, Mrs. St. James. I would have thought it was genuine rubies.”
Bianca smiled modestly. “Thank you, ma’am.”
After they had left the duchess—in a noticeably warmer mood—they toured the house. Max thought Bianca might like to see it once, although as her eyes climbed the tall, narrow windows in the dining room, a relic of the castle’s Norman past, he thought he might have let himself in for some teasing as well. They visited his ancestor’s portrait, and Bianca agreed he looked a bit of a rogue.
“Then again,” she whispered to him as they strolled out of the gallery, “I have a greater fondness for rogues now . . .”
They did not see Mr. Edwards, the solicitor, until the day they left. While the luggage was being stowed in the carriage, they had walked outside the castle walls to the rose garden, terraced on the sunny southern side of the motte. Mr. Edwards begged a moment of Max’s time, and so they left Bianca admiring the roses.
“Her Grace tells me you have refused further payments under her proposal,” said the solicitor once they had reached his office.
Max bowed. “You have the right of it, sir.”
“If I may be so bold, sir,” said the solicitor, “do not be an idiot.”
Max r
aised his brows. “I beg your pardon.”
“Despite what you might think, Her Grace did not offer the income to hold you under her thumb.” Edwards put up his hands at Max’s cynical look. “Not entirely to do so,” he amended. “It was her fondest hope that it would rouse your interest in Carlyle as well. Becoming duke would be an enormous challenge, and she did not wish to see you struggle under the weight of it. Any preparation at all would be invaluable.”
Max frowned. “We both know the odds that I’ll inherit are vanishingly small.”
Mr. Edwards coughed delicately. “Do we know that, sir?”
“Yes,” said Max slowly, staring at him. “I understand the current duke is in declining health, but Captain St. James is hale and vigorous.”
Mr. Edwards folded his hands on his desk. “Yes. You are correct about His Grace’s health, lamentably. However . . . I would not brush off all expectation, sir.”
“Why?”
“We’ve not heard from Captain St. James since he went north,” said the solicitor. “He intended to visit Scotland to inform his mother and sisters of his good fortune, and then return. We expected him weeks ago. Unfortunately, he has not returned, nor has he sent word.”
Max’s brain froze. The St. James family tree rose in his memory, stark and spare with all those stunted branches, bare of heirs. “I see,” he murmured.
Mr. Edwards smiled. “I am relieved to hear it. Her Grace was very pleasantly surprised by your visit. Managing a factory, while hardly comparable to a dukedom, is at least a step in the right direction.”
“You’ll let me know, won’t you?” Max demanded, ignoring the slight to his new profession. “If you hear from the captain?”
Edwards bowed his head. “Of course, sir. And I shall continue paying your income.”
In a daze Max walked back out to his wife. In the sunlight, in this magnificent garden, she was unbearably beautiful, her hair shining like honey under her straw hat, her gloved hands trailing through the last of the summer roses.
About a Rogue EPB Page 29
