Cold-Hearted Rake

No… that wasn’t quite accurate.

Shaken, Devon brought himself to face the truth.

He’d wanted it.

He’d wanted the excuse to make Kathleen his in every way. He wanted his baby inside her. He wanted his ring on her finger, and every marital right that it conferred.

He wanted to share every day of the rest of his life with her.

“What are you worrying about?” he heard his brother ask.

Devon was slow to reply, trying to retrace the steps that had led him so far away from everything he’d always thought he was. “Before I inherited the title,” he said dazedly, “I wouldn’t have trusted either of us with a goldfish, much less a twenty-thousand-acre estate. I’ve always shunned any kind of responsibility because I knew I couldn’t manage it. I’m a scapegrace and a hothead, like our father. When you told me that I had no idea how to run the estate and I was going to fail —”

“That was a load of bollocks,” West said flatly.

Devon grinned briefly. “You made some valid points.” Absently he began to roll the hematite between his palms. “But against all odds, it seems that you and I have managed to make enough of the right choices —”

“No,” West interrupted. “I’ll take no credit for this. You alone decided to take on the burden of the estate. You made the decisions that led to the lease deal and the discovery of the iron deposits. Has it occurred to you that if any of the previous earls had bothered to make the land improvements they should have, the hematite bed would have been discovered decades ago? You certainly would have found it when you ordered the drainage trenches dug for the tenant farms. You see, Eversby Priory is in good hands: yours. You’ve changed hundreds of lives for the better, including mine. Whatever the word is for a man who’s done all that… it’s not ‘scapegrace.’” West paused. “My God, I can feel sincerity rising in my chest like a digestive disorder. I have to stop. Shall we go to the house for you to change into some field boots? Then we can return here, talk to the surveyors, and have a walk around.”

Pondering the question, Devon dropped the pebble into his pocket, and met his brother’s gaze squarely.

One thought was paramount: None of this mattered without Kathleen. He had to go to her at once, and somehow make her understand that during the past few months, he had changed without even being aware of it. He had become a man who could love her.

God, how madly he loved her.

But he had to find a way of convincing her, which would not be easy.

On the other hand… he wasn’t a man to back down from a challenge.

Not any longer.

He glanced at his brother and spoke in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “I can’t stay,” he said. “I have to go back to London.”

The morning of Devon’s departure, Helen didn’t come downstairs for breakfast, but sent word that she was suffering a migraine and would stay in bed. Unable to remember the last time that Helen had been ill, Kathleen was deeply concerned. After giving Helen a dose of Godfrey’s Cordial to relieve the pain, she applied cool compresses to her forehead and made certain that the bedroom was kept dark and quiet.

At least once an hour, as Helen slept, Kathleen or one of the twins tiptoed to the doorway of her room to look in on her. She didn’t awaken during any of the visits, only twitched like a sleeping cat and drifted through dreams that seemed far from pleasant.

“It’s a good sign that she has no fever, isn’t it?” Pandora asked in the afternoon.

“Yes,” Kathleen replied firmly. “I expect that after the excitement of the past week, she needs rest.”

“I don’t think that’s what it is,” Cassandra said. She had perched on the settee with a brush and rack of hairpins and a fashion periodical in her lap, experimenting with Pandora’s hair. They were attempting to copy one of the latest styles, an elaborate affair that consisted of locks of hair rolled and pinned into puffs atop the head, with a loose double chatelaine braid falling down the back. Unfortunately Pandora’s chocolaty hair was so heavy and slippery that it refused to stay in its pins, the locks sliding free and collapsing the puffs.

“Be stern,” Pandora encouraged. “Use more pomade. My hair will respond only to brute force.”

“We should have bought more at Winterborne’s,” Cassandra said with a sigh. “We’ve already gone through half the —”

“Wait,” Kathleen said, staring at Cassandra. “What did you just say? Not about the pomade, the thing you said about Helen.”

The girl brushed out a lock of Pandora’s hair as she answered. “I don’t think she needs rest because of too much excitement. I think…” She paused. “Kathleen, is it tattling if I say something about someone else that’s private and I know they wouldn’t want it to be repeated?”

“Yes. Unless it’s about Helen and you’re telling it to me. Go on.”

“Yesterday, when Mr. Winterborne came to visit, he and Helen were in the downstairs parlor with the door closed. I was going to fetch a book I’d left on the window ledge, but I heard their voices.” Cassandra paused. “You were with the housekeeper, going over the inventory list, so I didn’t think it was worth bothering you.”

“Yes, yes… and?”

“From what little I could hear, they were quarreling about something. Perhaps I shouldn’t call it quarreling, since Helen didn’t raise her voice, but… she sounded distressed.”