Chapter 21
Alistair paced before the grate in the family parlor of the Masterson residence in Town, his sleekly polished Hessians treading silently across the oriental rug. His fingers were laced at the small of his back, his hands tingling from the strain of his white-knuckled clasp. “Smallpox.”
“Yes.” His mother’s voice was soft with anguish. Louisa, the Duchess of Masterson, sat on a carved wooden chair with her back painfully straight. Her hair remained as dark as Alistair’s, the glossy tresses unmarred by any gray, but her lovely face betrayed both her age and the agony of outliving three of her four sons. The portrait of her above the mantel was taller and wider than Alistair’s height, and it served as the focal point of the room. Her younger self smiled down at anyone occupying the expansive space, her blue eyes naively clear of the many tragedies yet to come.
Alistair had no notion of what to say. All three of his brothers were dead, and grief weighted his heart like a heavy, oppressive stone. Of equal burden was the title he now bore, a distinction he’d never coveted. “I don’t want this,” he said hoarsely. “Tell me how to get out.”
“There is no way out.”
He looked at her. Masterson was at home, but she dealt with this impossible situation alone because her beloved husband couldn’t face the bastard who would now bear his exalted title.
“He could denounce me,” Alistair suggested, “which would open an avenue for a relative to inherit.”
“Alistair . . .” She lifted a handkerchief to her mouth and sobbed, the wretched sound tearing through his innards like claws.
“He cannot even face me. He must want a way out as well.”
“If there was an alternative he could live with, yes. But he will not be a cuckold or shame me, and the next in line to inherit is a distant cousin whose worth is questionable.”
“I do not want this,” he said again, stomach churning. Alistair wanted a life of travel and adventure with Jessica. He wanted to bring her joy and challenges, and the freedom to erase the oppression of her youth with an adulthood that was boundless.
“You will be one of the wealthiest men in England now—”
“By God, I won’t touch a shilling of Masterson’s precious coin,” he bit out, his blood boiling at the mere suggestion. “You have no notion of the things I’ve done to be solvent. He gave me scant assistance when I most needed it. I damned well won’t take anything from him now!”
Louisa rose, her hands twisting in her kerchief. Tears coursed unchecked down her hollowed cheeks. “What would you have me do? I cannot regret your birth. I would not go back and give you up. To have you in my life I had to risk this, and Masterson took that risk for me. With me. We made the decision together, and we will abide by it.”
“Yet here you stand, alone.”
Her chin lifted. “My choice. My consequence.”
Abandoning the fireplace, he approached her. The ceiling hung thirty feet above them; the nearest wall was a score of feet away. Every Masterson holding boasted similar cavernous spaces containing furnishings and artwork accumulated over centuries.
The distant walls closed in, squeezing Alistair’s chest like a vise.
He’d never felt connected to any of it, had never felt a sense of familial pride or a sense of belonging. Bearing the title would be akin to wearing a mask. He’d donned a role once before to survive, but now he was comfortable with who he was. Comfortable being the man Jessica loved unconditionally.
“Your choice,” he said softly, feeling very much like the impostor he was being told to be. “But I must pay the price.”
Staying as a guest in Regmont’s house, Jess slept not a wink all night. Her thoughts sped too swiftly through her mind, her heart breaking at every turn.
Alistair was now the Marquess of Baybury. Someday in the future, he would become the Duke of Masterson. Immense power and prestige came with those stations, but so, too, did grave responsibilities.
He could not take a barren woman to wife.
On both the Acheron and the island, they’d slept until noon. On their second morning in London, however, Alistair came calling at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock. She was dressed and ready for him, knowing he would come to her as soon as it was acceptable to do so. Knowing she had to be strong enough for both of them.
She descended the stairs with as much decorum as she could manage while feeling as if she was headed toward the gallows. When she rounded the bend in the stairs leading to the foyer, she found Alistair waiting with one hand atop the newel post and one foot propped on the bottom stair. He retained his hat and wore black from head to toe. His features appeared as stark as she felt.
He opened his arms to her, and she raced to fill them, dashing down the remaining stairs and launching herself against him. He caught her easily, squeezing tight.
“I am so sorry for your loss,” she breathed, her fingers kneading restlessly into his tense nape.
“I am sorry for my gain.” His voice was flat and cold, but his embrace was not. He pressed his temple to hers and held her as if he would never let go.
After a long moment, he allowed her to lead him into the parlor. They both remained standing, facing each other. He looked tired and older than his years.
Running a hand through his hair, he groaned his frustration. “It seems we are to be trapped.”
She nodded, then stumbled toward the nearest chair. Her heartbeat was too quick and erratic, making her dizzy. We, he said, as she had known he would. She sank into a yellow damask-covered wingback and sucked in a deep breath. “You’ll be busy.”
“Yes, damn it all. It has already started. The moment Masterson learned I’d returned, he began filling a schedule for me. I haven’t a free quarter hour to myself over the next three days. God knows if I’ll even be allowed to relieve myself.”
Her heart ached for him. He resented the road set before him, but he was more than competent. He had a brilliant head for business matters and an air of command that earned the respect of great men. “In no time at all, you will have everything running so smoothly others will stand back in awe.”
“I don’t give a damn what he thinks.”
“I wasn’t referring to Masterson, but regardless, you care what your mother thinks and she cares about what he thinks. She loves you and fought for you—”
“Not enough.”
“What is enough?”
The look he shot her was combative. She held his gaze.
He growled. “God, I miss you. I detest this game of waiting for certain hours to see you and lying in bed at night without you beside me. I miss having your ear and being the grateful recipient of your counsel.”
Jess’s eyes stung. He looked so hard faced, discouraged, and alone. He’d retained his hat, and he worried the brim with restless hands, twisting the chapeau around and around. “I will always be available to you.”
“I know what you wanted,” he said gruffly, “but I can’t wait for it. It may take months to work through the morass my life has become, and I cannot focus on that while starving for you. I’ve come to ask you to elope with me.”
Her hands linked in her lap. The pain in her chest was agonizing, nearly debilitating. “That wouldn’t be wise.”
He stilled, his fevered gaze narrowing. “Don’t do this to me.”
“You knew I would. That is why you’re so agitated and why you came to me with the sun barely in the sky.” She blew out a deep breath. “You need me to do this so you can move forward.”
“Do what, Jess?” he asked with dangerous softness. “Say it.”
“Afford you the time and space to become accustomed to who you will have to be from this point in your life onward.”
“I know what I want.”
“You know what you wanted,” she corrected, “but now you have so much more to consider. Where do all the pieces fit? Do some overlap? Are others obsolete? You won’t know until you immerse yourself in this role you’ve assumed.”
“Don’t,” he snapped, his voice vibrating with fury. “Don’t you dare sit there so primly and speak about the dissolution of our relationship in that toneless voice as if you are asking me if I want more tea instead of ripping out my heart!”
“Alistair . . .” Her lower lip quivered and she bit it, tasting blood.
“You’re afraid,” he accused.
“Aren’t you? It is the worst state of mind in which to make life-altering decisions.”
His nostrils flared. “You cannot live without me, either, Jess.”
She couldn’t; she knew that. She hoped she wouldn’t have to. But they both had to be certain. “Hester needs me now. I can’t leave her.”
“But you can leave me.”
“You are much stronger than she is.”
“I still need you!” he bit out, enunciating every word. “She has Regmont and Michael and you. I only have you. You are the only one who takes care of me; the only one who thinks of my happiness first and last and always. If you leave me, Jess, you leave me with nothing.”
“I’ll never leave you,” she whispered. “But that doesn’t mean I should be with you.”
Jess knew he could see on her face how she felt about him, how she breathed for him. But love was supposed to be selfless, despite his protestations to the contrary. Their marriage could irrevocably damage his relationship with his mother, the only person aside from Jess who loved him truly. If he was willing to take that risk, she would take it with him, but he wasn’t acknowledging it now. He was rushing forward without thought, defiant in the face of a future he didn’t want.
“Jess.” His gaze was as hard as gemstone. “I knew you were mine the moment I saw you. Young as I was, I still had no doubt. I never married, never even considered for a moment all the merchant and landowner daughters who were set in my path, bearing sizable dowries and advantageous alliances. I spurned them all, certain you would one day belong to me. It was unfathomable to me that you wouldn’t be. I would have waited two score years for you. Double that. You cannot ask me now to proceed with my life without any possibility of having you. I might as well be dead.”
“Don’t misunderstand me.” Her voice gained the strength of her conviction. “I am not going anywhere. I won’t be seeking anyone. I will be here with Hester.”
“Waiting?”
“No. I cannot. That will hold you back.” She tugged at the ruby on her finger, feeling as if she were cutting out her own heart with a dull blade.
“Enough.” Dropping his hat, Alistair lunged for her, staying her before the gold band slipped free of her fingertip. He pushed the ring back on, his forehead touching hers. His breath came quick and shallow, gusting over the tip of her nose. “Make me understand.”
“First, you must know that I understand.” She clutched his hand, willing him to absorb all the strength and love she had. “I thought of how I would feel if I were forced to give you up to spare someone I loved, and how much more unfair it would be if Hadley benefited in any way from that sacrifice.”
“I am not giving you up, Jess. I won’t. I can’t.”
“Shh . . . I’ve inferred what you have left unsaid about your mother and Masterson. I collect how it must have been—the illusion of acceptance and understanding broken by carefully rendered cuts and barbs. He has never allowed your mother to forget her transgression or how much it’s cost him, has he? And she has been burdened with guilt and remorse for all of your life. She’s allowed him to wound her in countless tiny ways as penance. And you have watched it all transpire, and suffered your own feelings of blame and regret.”
“You inferred all that, did you?” He cupped her tense jaw with heartrending tenderness.
“You are very protective of her, to your own detriment. One doesn’t seek to protect something that isn’t in danger of being broken.”
Alistair brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “My mother is so strong willed and assertive, except when it comes to this. To me.”
She leaned into his touch. “It isn’t you, my love. You are not at fault. Consider it carefully . . . There are ways to prevent conception for both men and women. If she was simply addressing her physical needs, wouldn’t she be prepared? And her lover also?”
“What are you saying?”
“Perhaps your mother had a grand passion. A whirlwind affair. A sexual craving that drowned out all thought and reason. Perhaps that is why she feels such shame.”
“She loves Masterson. God knows why.”
“And I love you, with abandon, to a degree I have never felt with anyone else. And yet there were times when I lost my head with Tarley; times when I felt as if I would go mad if he didn’t touch me.”
He covered her lips with his fingers. “Say no more,” he said gruffly, but his gaze was soft.
“You, too, know that fierce sexual pleasure can come without love. If I am correct, it would help to explain your mother’s need to be penitent.” She grasped the wrist of the hand he stroked her with, squeezing gently in a silent offer of support. “It’s also possible that she secretly desired to conceive again. If she’d tried to arouse Masterson for a length of time prior to his decision to ignore her indiscretions, she might have felt less of a woman. Perhaps she wondered if Masterson’s inability to become aroused was in some way her fault. There are many possibilities for the tension you’ve witnessed. None of them have anything to do with you.”
He stared into her, seeing how and why she commiserated with his mother. She’d suffered through her own feelings of despair and inadequacy.
“It isn’t you,” she said again. “But you feel responsible and you have worked the whole of your life to stay out of sight and be as little a burden as possible. Now, you will be the most prominent face of a family you don’t feel a part of, and you will be expected to carry that family forward. I am useless to you in that regard.”
“Don’t.” Alistair pressed his lips to her forehead. “Don’t ever talk about yourself in that manner.”
“My barrenness pained me before. But Tarley and I had Michael and the children he would father. There is no one to carry that burden for you, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I am not a damned martyr, Jess. I have sacrificed all I am willing to for this farce. I will never give you up. Not for this. Not for anything.”
“And I won’t lose you to remorse and blame. I would rather lose you now, with love between us, than years down the road with your mother’s unhappiness and your feelings of responsibility for it wedged between us.”
“What would you have me do?” His gaze darkened to a deep sapphire. “If I cannot have you, I won’t have anyone. No one gets what they want then.”
“Settle your affairs, then settle yourself. Live this life you’ve assumed. Accustom yourself to it. Gain your bearings. If you still want me after you’ve done that and your mother can give her blessing without reserve, you know where to find me.”
He kissed her sweetly, his lips clinging to hers. When he pulled back, he looked at her with shadowed and sultry eyes, his face a stunning mask of masculine beauty and aching torment. “I will see to this; you see to your sister. Be quick about it. It won’t be long before I come for you, and you’d best be ready, Jess, with my ring still gracing your hand. You won’t stay me then. I’ll drag you to Scotland in irons if I have to.”
He left her in a rush. As always, taking her heart with him.
Jess was still in the parlor when Hester joined her, three hours and three glasses of claret later.
“I was told Baybury called this morning,” her sister murmured.
Wincing inwardly at the sound of Alistair’s title, she nodded and took another drink.
Hester paused by the table and frowned down at Jess. “Claret for breakfast?”
Jess shrugged. She’d begun imbibing as a young girl, after the cook took to slipping brandy into her tea when her body ached too much to allow sleep. It swiftly became apparent to her that liquor dulled emotional pain as well. In the early years of her marriage, she’d had no need to drink. But once the consumption had dug its greedy talons into Benedict’s lungs, she’d turned to the comfort found in a bottle and hadn’t yet turned away.
Hester took a seat on the settee beside her. “I have never seen you look more melancholy, and there is no good reason to drink spirits first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t fret over me.”
“Did he throw you over, Jess?” Hester asked softly.
Of course Hester would leap to the obvious and most sensible course of action. She had been raised by the same parents as Jess, after all. Women of the peerage served one vital purpose—to bear heirs, as many as possible.
Reaching over, Jess squeezed her sister’s thin hand. “No. And he won’t. He loves me too much.”
“Then why do you look as you did when Temperance died? Does he wish to delay the wedding?”
“On the contrary, he hoped I would elope with him.”
“You refused? Why?” Her eyes glistened. “Dear God . . . Please, don’t say you stayed for me! I couldn’t bear it. You have already given up too much on my behalf.”
“I did it for him, because it’s best for him. He needs time, even if he refuses to acknowledge that need. The man I intended to wed no longer exists. The man he will have to be now has different needs, and goals to which I am an impediment. It is the former who clings to me so stubbornly. And so I’ve asked him to spend some time living the life of the latter. If that man wants me and if he can love me wholeheartedly, with no regrets or recrimination, then we can be happy and I will gladly marry him. But he can’t know that yet. He still believes he can be Alistair Caulfield.”
“He will come back for you, won’t he?”
Jess’s heart ached. “For a certainty. He’s wanted me a long time. Since before I wed Benedict.”
“Truly?” Hester brushed at the wetness on her long lashes. “I find that wonderfully romantic.”
“He is the world to me. I cannot tell you what he’s done for me . . . how he’s changed me. He knows me as well as you do. All my secrets and fears and hopes. There is nothing to hide from him and no reason to try if there was. He accepts my faults and shortcomings as a means to bind us closer together.”
“And what of the errors of his ways?”
Jess found her sister’s question very telling. “There are plenty of those, as everyone knows, and he goes to great pains to tell me about them.”
“He does? Why?”
“He wanted anything that might later turn me away from him to be disclosed from the outset, before our attachment to one another grew and the possibility of separation became too painful.” All his best intentions, for naught.
Hester’s face took on a wistful cast. “I would never have guessed Alistair Caulfield would be so . . .”
“Mature?” Jess smiled sadly. “His circumstances have been more difficult than anyone would expect. His maturity comes from cynicism and a jaded outlook. His is far older than his years.”
“What will you do now?”
“Focus on seeing you hale and hearty. Rejoin Society in truth.” Restless, she stood. “I need new gowns.”
“Your mourning is over.”
Was it? Perhaps she would be in mourning still, but not for her former husband. “Yes. It’s time.”
“It is,” Hester agreed.
Jess looked at the wine on the table, her fingers clenching against the need to reach for it. That dependency would have to be addressed, as well. She had no right to ask Alistair to conquer his demons while still clinging to her own.
“We’ll need to eat a hearty breakfast to sustain us through the volume of shopping I intend to accomplish today.”
Hester rose to her feet like a graceful wraith. “I would love to see you in a berry-hued gown.”
“Red. Also gold.”
“Astonishing,” Hester said. “Father would have an apoplectic fit.”
Jess almost laughed at the image that came to mind, but Hester gasped, then slumped against her. Jess barely caught her unconscious sister before she hit the floor.