Chapter 15
Maxim felt numb as he sat beside Heather’s bed waiting for her to wake from her faint. He’d carried her to her bedchamber after catching her in his arms as she fell.
Ralph was his son.
He had no idea, with Ralph’s birthday next month, how that was even possible, but nor did he doubt Heather’s words.
Ralph is my son.
The knowledge opened up more questions than it answered.
Was it because Heather was expecting Ralph that she had agreed to marry his father?
Was the unexpected pregnancy, and Maxim’s disappearance, why Heather had hated him for so many years?
Was this also the reason for the anger he had felt emanating toward him from Heather’s parents the day they’d visited them to collect Ralph and bring him home to Treganon House?
If Maxim had not disappeared for almost a year, he and Heather might have been the ones who had married six years ago. They could have celebrated together the birth of their son and would still be happily married to each other, possibly with more children, a brother and a sister for Ralph.
The thought of that being true was enough to cause Maxim to bend over at the waist at the force of the physical pain that tightened his chest and stole his breath away.
“Maxim…?” Heather queried softly as she woke to the sound of Maxim’s pained groan.
He raised his head but remained bent over, his arms wrapped about his waist. “How are you feeling?”
How was she feeling? If Heather remembered correctly, and she was sure she did, before she fainted she had told Maxim he was Ralph’s father. No doubt this was the reason for his pained expression. His eyes were dark pools of anguish, grooves etched beside his eyes and mouth.
“It was only a faint following the strain of the day,” she dismissed as she pulled herself up against the pillows, not quite able to meet Maxim’s gaze. She was afraid of what she might see there. “Six years ago, I was nineteen years of age, had realized I was expecting your baby, and it terrified me.” She swept her tongue across dry lips. “My father spoke to your father, and James traveled to London to speak with you, as you had not returned to Cornwall as we expected you would. He was told, I have no idea by whom, that you were away fighting and not expected back for some months.”
He nodded. “They would not have been allowed to tell him I was a prisoner of the French.”
Was that accusation Heather could hear in his tone? She had no idea, and a quick glance at Maxim’s face showed he still looked anguished rather than anything else. “I am sorry, Maxim. So very sorry.” Her voice broke emotionally.
“You married my father.”
“He was gracious and kind enough to marry me,” she corrected. “You could not be found, the babe was growing bigger inside me— None of us knew what else to do!” Her words were a plea for his understanding.
Maxim rose abruptly to cross the room and stand in front of the window, looking out as dawn began to break. “Why did no one tell me the truth once I returned to England?”
“James wanted to. I persuaded him he should not. We were married in the eyes of the law and God,” she added as Maxim remained looking out the window. “Nothing and no one could change that.”
“Did you love him?”
Rather than continue to stare at Maxim’s rigid and uncompromising back, she glanced down to where her fingers were pleating the bedsheet over and over again. “I liked and respected James immensely, and I hope he learned to like and care for me too. But no, I was never in love with him, nor he with me. He loved your mother still till the day he died. He only married me because he wanted to give Ralph legitimacy and your family name.”
“To do that, he must have lied about Ralph’s true birth date.”
“Yes.”
“Did you and my father share a bed?”
“There has only ever been you, Maxim,” she acknowledged huskily. “Only you,” she repeated softly.
Maxim turned slowly, his face pale. “Why?”
Heather drew in a shaky breath. “I was a married woman with a young son. I would never have betrayed my marriage vows. And since—well, since James died, I have concentrated my devotion on Ralph and the estate and tenants.”
A nerve pulsed in Maxim’s clenched jaw. “Do you hate me?”
“No. No!” she repeated vehemently. “Oh, do not misunderstand me, I tried to hate you. Believed you had used me that summer and then abandoned me. I have been angry and hurt, but I could never quite bring myself to hate you.” She knew she spoke the truth. Much as she had tried to hate Maxim for his believed betrayal, she had never quite managed to do so.
Because she had always loved him.
Would always love him.
No matter what Maxim decided should happen next.
Maxim stared at Heather as if he had never seen her before. And perhaps he had not.
The young woman he had spent the summer with six years ago had been headstrong and fearless.
The woman, the countess, he had met a year later, had been cold and haughty.
The widow he came here to visit a week ago had been equally as haughty, but that haughtiness had been tinged with a deep sadness rather than coldness. A sadness Maxim had attributed to her having loved, and now lost, his father.
The Heather he looked at now was none of those things.
She was more.
A woman of substance and loyalty. A widow who had never betrayed her husband, no matter what the circumstances of their marriage. A mother who loved her son fiercely. A devoted daughter and sister. A mistress who treated her servants with the respect they deserved. A friend and helper to all the tenants living on the estate.
She was also the woman Maxim knew he would love to his last breath.
He swallowed. “What happens now?”
Heather gave a shake of her head. “That is for you to decide.”
Because despite the fear she must have of possibly losing Ralph, she had still told Maxim he was Ralph’s father.
It was time, past time, for Maxim to put aside his own fears and be as honest with her as she had been with him.
He crossed the room to stand beside the bed, where she lay pale and uncertain. “Never fear that I will ever try to take Ralph away from you.”
She looked up at him then, her beautiful green eyes awash with tears. “But he is your son.”
“I will never take him away from you,” Maxim repeated firmly. “I would like to share him with you, but I will never attempt to take him from your side or his home here.”
She shook her head. “I have already thought of us sharing him, but it would be too confusing for Ralph to be shunted back and forth between the two of us—”
“Not if we were married and living in the same house.”
Heather stared up at him. “You are talking of a marriage of convenience, like the one I had with your father?”
“No.”
A frown creased her brow. “I do not understand…”
The last of the barriers Maxim had built about his emotions for his own protection crumpled into dust at his feet. He now wished to prostrate himself in front of Heather and beg her, if necessary, to give him the opportunity to love and care for her and Ralph.
Instead, he fell to his knees beside the bed—something he had assured Wessex he would never do for any man or woman, but which he would happily do for Heather, again and again, if necessary—before taking one of her hands in his own. “I loved you six years ago and would have come back to you if I could. I have loved you all the years since. I love you now. I would deem it the highest honor if you would consent to be my wife and the woman I will love, along with our son and any other children we might have, for all the days of my life.”
Had Heather, like Ralph, hit her head when she fell into a faint? Because Maxim could not be saying these things to her. Could he?
“I am not asking that you return that love now,” Maxim added gruffly. “But I am asking for the opportunity to show you how much I love you, in the hope that one day, you might learn to feel the same way about me.”
That she might one day learn to love him?
Heather drew in a deep and steadying breath, holding Maxim’s gaze as she answered him. “I loved you six years ago. I have loved you for all the years since. I love you now. I would deem it the highest honor if you would be my husband and allow me to love you and our son for all the days of my life.”
Maxim’s fingers gripped hers even more tightly, and tears welled in those dark gray eyes. “How can you possibly love me still?”
“How can I not?” she came back firmly. “You are honorable and true to your family, friends, and country. A war hero, whether anyone but me knows it or not. You already love Ralph, despite not knowing he is your son. You continued to love me, even though all evidence pointed to my only having married your father for his title and wealth. You were willing to defend me to any and all who might accuse me of treason, even if it had transpired I was the one who betrayed England. How can I not love you, Maxim?” she repeated emotionally.
A tear slid unchecked down the harshness of his cheek. “I never want to be apart from you for so much as a single day ever again.”
Her smile was tremulous. “Or I you.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Marry me, Heather. Be my wife and make me the happiest man alive. Please!”
“Yes!” she cried as she launched herself into his arms, the two of them falling to the carpeted floor in a tangle of arms and legs. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Maxim laughed for what seemed to him to be the first time in six years. Since the day he had lost Heather.
But he would never lose her again. He intended to hold her safely in his arms.
Forever.
A week later, Maxim stood beside where his father was buried in the family crypt, his head bowed as he spoke quietly. “In just a little while, Heather and I are to be married in the family chapel.” Neither of them had wanted to wait a moment longer than they had to, and Prinny had been more than happy to provide them with a Special License, as he recently had for three of The Sinners before Maxim. “Ralph is to give his mother into my safekeeping.” Maxim smiled at his son’s excitement in learning Maxim was to marry his mother and become his new papa. One day, when Ralph was old enough to understand, they would explain that situation to him fully. “But before the wedding takes place, I wished to come here and thank you for caring for both of them for me when I could not. To let you know that I will love and cherish them both for the rest of my days.”
There was no answer, of course.
But there did not need to be one.