Page 89 of The Rebellious Countess
—The third letter written by Simon Benjamin Clark, Earl of Astley, to Sir Elias Maximilien Allistair Drake, when Lady Máira Blair Drake refused his proposal of marriage. The first two letters were thrown into the fire when Elias determined them to be illegible, as he drowned himself in alcohol.
Urquhart Castle was empty. There were servants going about their daily tasks, but the silence was enough to drive her utterly mad. She missed the chaos of her sisters, the teasing, the laughing, even the fights would be better than the clock ticking away the time as if nothing mattered.
Because something did matter. The babe in her stomach meant the world. Iseabail had been the first to recognize her symptoms. When she’d first become ill and lost her breakfast,everyone began to panic about the sickness spreading through the London townhouse. Then she recovered within a couple of hours, and a huge sigh of relief went through the family and staff. Except it happened again the next day, and the next, until Iseabail pulled her aside and asked if it was possible she were pregnant. She’d broken down and cried in Iseabail’s arms from heartbreak and misery and fear. Then her tears turn to ones of joy and happiness, as she realized she’d been gifted a piece of the man she loved.
The next morning she’d gone to see Simon and turned down his proposal of marriage. She was almost certain he wouldn’t remember. His fever had been high, and he appeared to fall asleep mid-confession. She could not allow him to raise another man’s baby, not after the scandal his family had suffered. She refused to do it to him. She followed up the rejection by throwing up most spectacularly in an antique vase in the earl’s bedchamber. Caillen had come in and banned her until she was better.
She ran her finger through the moisture gathering on the glass of her library window overlooking the hillside. She wrote her favorite phrase over and over as if she were learning to write it in the nursery. Sitting in the window seat, staring out at the vast green hills, she wrapped her arm around her stomach, she leaned her head against the cool glass and sighed as she caught a glimpse of herself across the room in the floor-to-ceiling-length mirror.
“Miss Máira you have a visitor.”
Máira swung her feet to the floor, slipped them into her shoes, and frowned. Her nearest neighbor was a good half-day’s ride away. “Who is it, Ward?”
“He says he’s the Earl of Dorset, your husband.”
Her heart skipped. “I don’t have a husband.”
“Aye, lass, you do.” He stood in the doorway to the library, dripping on her floor as if he’d been in the rain for days. His long curly hair was plastered to his head, and his body was covered in mud.
“Don’t talk like you’re a Scotsman, you dirty Sassenach French bastard.”
He smirked. “I don’t think Aventine would appreciate you saying that.”
“It has nothing to do with your mother, and everything to do with the man traipsing muck into my home!”
He looked down at the trail of mud behind him and sat down in the middle of her floor and began removing his boots. Then he addressed her butler. “Apologies, Ward. I was just anxious to see my wife again.”
Ward nodded in understanding.
She looked toward heaven for patience and sanity. “Don’t bother taking your boots off, you’re leaving.”
“I’m staying,mo ghaol,” he said softly.
“Stop talking as if you know Gaelic. You are not a Scotsman, and you are not an earl. You are a bloody, lying Sassenach French bastard who doesn’t know the meaning ofmo ghaol. And don’t help him remove his boots, Ward!”
Her order was too late. Elias’s second boot was off and making her pristine butler filthy. “Sorry, Countess,” Ward said, as he backed out of the room and closed the door.
“I’m not a bloody countess!” she screamed.
Elias grinned as he stood and turned the key in the lock.
“Get out.”
He waved his index finger at her as if she were a naughty child. “I’m not going anywhere, Wife.”
“You had our marriage annulled.”
“I did not.”
Her heart skipped a second beat and she found it difficult to swallow. “You don’t love me.”
“I do. I lied.”
“Exactly. You lied. Everything out of your mouth is a lie.”
“Not anymore.”
“And how am I supposed to tell if that’s a lie?”
