Page 2 of A Rogue's Downfall
“My lady?” he said to her. He had never called her Amy. She had never called him Hugh. “I trust I findyou well?” What a strange way to address one’s wifeof less than a year after a two-and-a-half-month absence from her.
“Thank you, yes, my lord,” she said.
He should have taken her hand and raised it to his lips. But he hesitated a second too long, and the moment when it might have been smoothly done passed.
“And my son?” He lay awake at nights wanting his son, longing for that tiny, warm, perfect little bundleof life that had aroused such an unexpected wellingof love in him as he had watched it emerge wet andblood-smeared from his wife’s body. Her son. She hadcarried him inside her for nine months and deliveredhim after an agony that had lasted longer than twenty-four hours. The child was more her son than his. Andyet in London he longed for his son. And that washow he had referred to him now. He wished he couldrecall the words and ask howtheirson was.
“Well too, I thank you,” she said coolly. There was that in her voice and in her eyes that told him shestill hated him as much now as she had when she hadsummoned him to tell him that she had changed hermind about not marrying him because there was to bea child—his stomach could still lurch at the memoryof those words. She probably hated him more nowbecause now she had had time to realize that it wasa life sentence she had taken on.
He could not wait for a more decent time, when he would have had the opportunity to change from hisdusty clothes, to wash and to comb his hair. His son—their son—was three months old already. He had beentwo weeks old when they had parted. He would havechanged.
“You will take me to see him before I go to my room?” In his effort not to sound abjectly pleading,he sounded just the opposite, he feared. The arrogantmaster come to see his heir. James. He rarely thoughtof the child by name. He thought of him as his son.He offered his arm too late. She had already turnedfrom him without a word to take him to the nursery.He paused for a moment to remove his greatcoat before following her.
She was slender. Not exactly thin. She was as shapely as she had been before he had impregnatedher. Her hips still swayed as she walked with a provocation he guessed was unconscious. He had never beenable to bring himself to court her in the normal way,although he had been in love with her for almost ayear before it happened. He had not wanted to be inlove. He had not wanted to marry. He had earnedand coveted his notoriety as one of London’s mostactive rakes. She had been a bright little star beyondhis reach because he had chosen to live his life in adifferent sphere from the one she moved in. And now,although she was his wife and the mother of his son,she was forever outside his sphere, or he was outsidehers.
But something must be settled.
The child’s nurse smiled at his wife and then, seeing him, curtsied deeply. “He has just woken up, mylady,” she said. “I have changed his nappy, but he israther cross.” She flushed, darting him a look. Thebaby was crying in his crib.
His wife bent over the crib while the nurse tactfully withdrew. He watched her face in profile. It softened,and she smiled—and he knew again that he had beenshut out of her life. Because she hated him.
And then his stomach lurched again. His son had grown. He was no longer the tiny, red, and wrinkledlittle bundle of ugliness and beauty with his shock ofdark hair. He was now all plump and cuddly beauty,his hair still dark, but thinned out, sleek and shining.He stopped crying at the sound of Amy’s voice or atthe fact that she picked him up. He stared about himwith dark eyes. His son looked like him, the earlthought. By what miracle had he been carried in hismother’s body and born of her, and yet looked likehis father?
He clasped his hands very tightly at his back. He felt that rush of almost painful love again. He swallowed, afraid for one moment that he was going tocry. “He looks like me,” he said.
“Yes.” Just the one word, curtly and coldly spoken. He wondered if she loved the child, since it was whathad finally forced her hand. She had had the foolishcourage to refuse him when he had offered for herthe day after the—rape. She had recalled him fiveweeks later when she had discovered that that singledrunken encounter—they had both been drunk—hadhad consequences. The chances were that she wouldhate the child as she hated him, especially since thechild resembled him. And yet one glance at her facereassured him. She loved their son as he did.
“May I hold him?” Again his plea sounded more like a command. He stepped forward and reached outhis arms before she had a chance to reply. She handedhim their son without looking at him. She was carefulnot to touch him at all. She had touched him thatnight. All over. With eager, seeking hands and mouth.She had been drunk, of course. He had known thatand should have prevented what had happened eventhough he had been well into his cups himself. Thepoint was that he was used to drinking and its consequences. He had not been by any means beyond allresponsibility. He had known that it was the drinkthat made her bold and amorous. But he had takenadvantage of it. He had done nothing to douse hereagerness. Just the opposite. He had used all his expertise on her. He had penetrated her body knowingfull well what he did, knowing even what he must dothe following morning. She had moaned with the pain,desire, and eagerness to be taken to the end of whatshe was experiencing. He remembered the shudderingspasms of her climax, the sobs of helpless joy, theclinging arms, the damp, fulfilled body. The smell ofgin.
And then his son was in his arms, all soft, warm, sweet-smelling babyhood. He weighed so little thatthere was the instant fear of dropping him. The child’smouth found the bare skin above his cravat and wastrying to suck. He turned and walked toward the window with the baby so that his wife would not see hisagony—and his ecstasy. He touched one of his son’shands and spread the little, clinging fingers over oneof his own. Perfection even down to the cuticles ofthe nails. How could one look at a baby’s hands, hewondered, and not believe in God? It was a thoughtthat took him completely by surprise. He was whispering to the baby. He did not know what words hespoke. The baby began to cry.
“He is hungry.” The lack of emotion in the voice that came from behind him jarred him.
“Then he must be fed.” He turned away from the window. “You have done well with him, my lady. Helooks well cared for.”
“Of course,” she said, reaching out to take the baby from him. “I am his mother.”
The baby rubbed his face against her shoulder, seeking food. He let them know his dissatisfaction at not finding what he sought. She flushed. The earl wantedmore than anything to watch her set the child to herbreast. He wondered what she would do if he did notleave or if he instructed her to feed his son. But hehad no right to witness such intimacy. He had givenher the protection of his name because he had takenher honor and her reputation and because his childwas in her. He was her husband in the strictly legalsense. That doubtless gave him the right to any intimacy he chose to claim. But he had chosen to claimnothing. He was neither her friend nor her lover. Hehad no right to watch her set their son to her breast.
He made her a stiff bow. “I would be honored, my lady,” he said, “if you would dine with me this evening.” He would be damned if he would live with heras he had lived for the week before the birth of theirson and the two weeks after. Surely they could spenda few days together in civil courtesy. And somethingmust be settled. He was aware that he had come onthe spur of the moment because he had not wantedher at a Valentine’s party without him, perhaps flirtingwith other men, perhaps falling in love with anotherman, perhaps beginning an affair now that she hadperformed the duty of presenting her husband with ason and heir. He would not be able to blame her forsuch behavior—she had nothing from him. He justcould not bear the thought of it. He had come withoutreally planning to do so, but having decided to come,he was very aware of the occasion. Saint Valentine’sDay tomorrow. The day on which he had raped her—though only he had ever used that word. It would bea bitter anniversary. Something must be done. Something ...
“Of course, my lord,” she said. He could scarcely hear her voice above the angry wailing of his hungryson.
He turned and left the room. He wondered what they would talk about, seated alone together at thedining room table. Perhaps it would have been as wellto dine in their separate apartments as they had doneduring his previous visit.
God, he loved her still, he thought, coming to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs that led down tohis apartments. He was shaken by the unexpected realization. Shaken by his meeting with her now thathe had been away from her again. So slender andlovely—and so cold and joyless. He wondered howshe would have responded to him if he had chosen tocourt her. London’s worst rake and society’s freshestblossom. Perhaps he might have brought her to lovehim. He had no experience with innocence, but hehad had plenty of other experience with women. Hadhe chosen to make the effort, he could surely haveadapted that experience to the wooing of innocence.
Perhaps she would have been his wife now, the ornament and the love of his life. Perhaps that look she had always had—that look of eagerness, mischief,whatever it had been—would still have been there.Perhaps she would have looked at him that way. Perhaps she would have loved him. Perhaps he could haveadded another dimension to her life instead of destroying all that was worth living in it.
A pointless thought. He shook it from him as he descended the stairs. And yet something had to bedone. He had made an empty shell of her life. He hadmade his own scarcely worth the trouble of living. Wasit too late to woo the woman one had ruined andmarried and incarcerated on one’s country estate andheartily ignored for almost a year? Too woo her onValentine’s Day? It sounded like the appropriate dayon which to try. Except that for them it would be theworst of all possible days. He had wooed her exactlya year before, wooed her away from a party she hadhad no business attending right into the bed in whichhe had taken his pleasure with countless courtesansand mistresses. It was too late this year to try to setthe clock back, to try to do it right.
Far too late.
Wasn’t it?
Was it?
Was there any way he could go back and do things as they should have been done? How should they havebeen done? How would he go about wooing her if shewere not already his wife and did not already hatehim? He knew only how to lure women into his bed.He was an expert at that. How would he woo Amy ifshe were still a young virgin and he the man eager towin her as his wife?
