Chapter Eighteen
Three Weeks Later
U nable to resist, Shay stepped up behind Sophie as she worked at the bench in the greenhouse to prepare a dozen little pots for spring plantings, slipped his arms around her, and placed his mouth against the side of her neck in a lingering kiss. Immediately, her pulse spiked beneath his lips, and he smiled against her skin.
“If you keep that up,” she warned in what he knew to be her best attempt at a stern admonishment but which only emerged as a throaty purr, “we’ll never get the greenhouse readied for spring.”
“I’m perfectly fine with that.” To prove it, he took her earlobe between his lips and sucked.
A tremor swept through her. “And then what will all the little—” She gasped sharply when he nipped at her ear. “—all the little plantings do if—” When he soothed away the bite with a tender lick, her words faded into a soft whimper. “—if we don’t clean out—”
He turned her around in his arms and lowered his mouth to claim hers. At that moment, he didn’t give a damn if a single flower ever grew here again. All that mattered was the way her body melted against his, how her arms snaked up around his shoulders to pull him down into the embrace. A wolfish growl seeped from him, and he felt her grin with pleasure beneath his lips at the reaction she drew from him.
He slipped his hands beneath her open coat.
“Stop that!” She reached for his hands and darted a glance through the glass panes toward the barren garden beyond. “Someone will see.”
“I don’t care if they’re jealous.”
“It’s not jeal—” She caught her breath when his hand swept up to capture her breast. “They’ll think we’re shameless.”
“We are,” he reminded her with mock secretiveness even as he massaged her breast through her clothes and silently cursed that they prevented him from teasing her bare nipple with his fingertips.
A delicious flush of embarrassment pinked her cheeks at that reminder of how they’d spent the past month.
He nuzzled her cheek to hide his smile as he increased the pressure of his hand. How they’d spent those days and nights… bliss . They’d barely left their rooms for the first three days after they’d consummated their marriage, taking their meals in his room and lounging around sleepily in hers whenever they weren’t making love. And there had been a lot of that, both tender and fierce in turns, exploring each other’s body and satisfying each other’s needs.
When they reluctantly emerged from their rooms, their daily lives had irrevocably changed. Instead of riding out every day to avoid her as he’d done before, now Shay worked at home, ostensibly to keep up with managerial duties because Enfield had resigned upon learning that the duchess could have anything she wanted, including entirely new gardens. Truthfully, Shay simply wanted to be near her, although he’d taken frequent breaks to seek her out, often making love and often in places he never would have considered before. On the settee in the little room she’d turned into her office, in the tack room in the stables before taking her out in the sleigh and then again in the woods in the middle of their sleigh ride, even on the desk in his study—which made it damnably difficult afterward to concentrate whenever he attempted to work. And now, if he had his way, right here in the greenhouse.
Although—he threw a glance over his shoulder—she might be right about the glass and unwanted viewers. After all, if MacHeath caught them together, the old man would surely die of apoplexy.
“We’ll just be careful,” he told her and pressed himself closer, letting their two open coats hide what he was doing.
“Shay,” she protested, but her admonishment was undercut by her own hands as they roamed unseen over his front.
“Then we should go back to the house,” he murmured. “I’m suddenly feeling tired. I think I might need a nap.” His hands slipped behind her to squeeze her buttocks and tug her tightly against his pelvis. “A very long nap. Perhaps for the rest of the afternoon.”
“I’m too busy for that kind of nap.” Yet traitorously, her body responded by pressing into his. “I’m behind in spring preparations.” A soft moan rose from her lips as he stroked entreatingly over her hips. “You’ve been distracting me for weeks.”
“And I plan to continue to distract you every chance I have.” He grabbed his right glove in his teeth to tug it off, then dropped it to the floor. “Starting now.”
Her breath hitched as he reached to lift her skirts and slip his hand beneath to touch her bare thigh above her wool stockings. Selfishly, he wanted to see the expression of joy that always crossed her face when she came against his fingers.
“At this rate,” she teased, her voice trembling with growing arousal as he stroked her inner thigh, “I might just miss the fall harvest.”
He laughed and buried his face in her hair, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her against him. Good lord, was he happy! Happier than he had thought he’d ever be. Far happier, certainly, than he had a right to be.
But he didn’t want to tempt fate by uttering those feelings aloud. Just as he couldn’t bring himself to tell her he loved her.
“And winter and spring the following year,” he added as he shifted her against the work bench behind her and placed heated kisses to her neck. “And the one after that.” His fingers caressed against her feminine core and elicited a whimper from her lips. “And the one after—”
“Sir!” Pearson’s voice boomed across the barren garden, well before the former soldier came anywhere near the garden entrance.
Sophie giggled at the curse Shay uttered at being interrupted, then slipped out of his arms and left him leaning in disappointment against the bench, his head hanging low.
“I should have let him resign last month,” he grumbled.
“We would both be lost without him, and you know it.”
He did. In the absence of a steward, Pearson had stepped up to take on some of the immediate responsibilities for running the estate, while Shay oversaw the other Malvern properties. It was a good fit. After all, the man’s former training as an aid-de-camp meant he was genial and accommodating with the tenants, yet also subtly forceful when necessary and able to have his way in the end. Shay had to admit that Pearson was better at running Ravenscroft Manor than he would have been, especially with the servants and staff.
The perfect example was MacHeath. Pearson convinced the old gardener to come to Sophie, hat in hand, to apologize for his temper, if not yet completely ready to accept her changes. Then MacHeath assigned Robert Crenshaw, one of the gardeners, to assist Sophie with her plans, which served everyone well because MacHeath would stay out of her way, Crenshaw was eager to prove his worth, and Sophie was now free to make whatever changes she wanted. Once her plans were realized, Shay was certain, even the stubborn old Scot would admit how good her ideas were.
The tenants and villagers were also pleased to have Pearson working in their favor, if downright stunned to have Shay doing the same. To a man, they couldn’t believe that their lord was now taking an interest in them after such a hands-off approach since he’d inherited. Shay could barely believe it himself.
Between the two of them, they were capably managing affairs until a new steward could be found.
“I just wish Pearson had better timing,” he muttered and raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.
She threw him a coquettish smile and straightened her coat.
Pearson shouted again and finally entered the walled garden after giving plenty of notice.
Shay opened the door of the greenhouse. “Here!”
Pearson hurried across the garden. He nodded at Sophie as he approached, winded.
“This had better be important, Pearson,” Shay told him. “I’m in the middle of gardening with my wife.”
Sophie raised a brow at that obvious lie.
But Pearson appeared too distracted to notice. “There’s an important matter I thought you’d want to know about, Colonel.” His face was grim. “A message arrived. I put it on your desk in the study.”
Shay straightened. He had rarely seen the unflappable Pearson as agitated as this. So he snatched up his discarded glove from the floor and turned to Sophie.
“I’ll only be gone a moment,” he promised and placed an affectionate kiss to her temple. “Save the hardest work for Crenshaw, all right?”
She nodded, but she couldn’t hide the sudden concern darkening her face.
Shay and Pearson hurried back to the house through the layer of fresh snow, and Shay’s unease increased with every silent stride Pearson took beside him.
“What’s the matter?” Shay demanded when they finally reached the study. He stripped off his coat and tossed it to Henley, along with this hat and gloves, then gestured for the butler to close the door on his way out.
Pearson nodded at the note lying on the desk. “That arrived by messenger from Edinburgh. I thought it regarded the Scottish properties, so I opened it, but your staff at New House had only sent it on to you here. It concerns your late brother.” He paused. “And his heir.”
Shay froze, except for his heart which slammed against his ribs so hard that he lost his breath. “My brother didn’t have an heir.”
Pearson locked grim eyes with Shay. “It appears he might have had one after all.”
Shay stared down at the letter. If John had a legitimate son, if he had done the unthinkable and married—
He snatched up the message before he felt any unbidden relief wash over him at the possibility. After all, he had never been friends with fate.
“It’s from a parish priest in Culross,” he muttered as he scanned the handwriting. “A nine-year old boy whose mother recently died has become the responsibility of the parish to care for… His mother had been abandoned by the father shortly after their marriage, found she was with child, cared for the boy herself until…” His voice trailed off, unable to believe what he was reading.
“And so the priest has reached out to the family of the boy’s father to provide help and compensation so the parish isn’t burdened by his care,” Pearson finished solemnly. “To the Douglass family.”
“There’s no mention of Malvern or the dukedom,” Shay mumbled as he read the letter again.
“There wouldn’t be if your brother lied about his identity.”
Shay shook his head. “But for John to marry …”
“In Scotland, marrying is easy,” Pearson reminded him solemnly. “The laws there don’t require parental agreement before the age of majority or a reading of the banns. A blacksmith’s anvil in Culross is just as good as one in Gretna Green, and parish priests can be bought off to record marriages in the church registry for even the most questionable ceremonies. So easy to marry, in fact, that many men think that marriage in Scotland isn’t legal at all in England, that they can marry and then leave without repercussion, return to England, and marry someone else under the Church of England’s rules. From what I’ve heard about your brother, he might have thought the exact same.”
Shay knew he did. John would have thought nothing of marrying a woman in a legally dubious ceremony over the anvil in Culross as John Douglass and then marrying Sophie as John, Marquess of Colsworth, in a perfectly proper Church of England service on the Ravenscroft estate. No one would ever know he was a bigamist, and in John’s warped mind, he probably wouldn’t think he was.
Pearson considered aloud, “If the boy’s nine, then… Did your brother travel to Edinburgh ten years ago?”
Shay clenched his jaw. Pearson would think he did it in anger, when what he wanted was simply to keep any expression of hope from his face. “He attended university at St Andrews.” He gestured in the general direction of north. “He didn’t study so much as use it as an excuse to be away from Ravenscroft Manor so he could gamble and drink.”
“Among other things,” Pearson muttered. “I can ride north on your behalf, meet the priest, see the boy—”
“No. I have to do it myself. I’ll take my saddle horse. I don’t want to be slowed down by a coach.”
Pearson nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
Shay shook his head and glanced toward the window and the gardens beyond. “I need you to remain here and protect the duchess.” He nearly tripped over the word. If the letter proved true, Sophie wouldn’t be that any longer. How would she take that news? He didn’t dare let himself believe she might be as happy as he if John’s marriage proved true. “Have Simmons come with me. He’s the best rider of all the grooms.” Shay tossed the letter onto the desk. “Make ready. I want to leave in the morning at first light.”
“Yes, sir.” Pearson nodded and hurried from the study.
Sweet Lucifer. Shay leaned heavily against the desk, his head sagging between his shoulders, and grimaced.
A son—a legitimate son—by a woman respectable enough that she wouldn’t have lain with John before they were married. That was the only reason he would have married her instead of simply seducing her or paying for her pleasures. If the priest’s letter could be believed, then the marriage was lawfully recorded, the boy not a bastard…
The boy who was the rightful Duke of Malvern.
He shoved away from the desk and helped himself to a generous pour of whisky. As he stood in front of the tall window and lifted the glass to his lips, he stared out across the Malvern lands that extended all the way to the hills in the distance and then some. He’d learned as a boy that there was no place anywhere on the estate where he could stand and see all its holdings, not even from the top of the tallest hill. Even now he could remember the chill of awe that realization had spread through him, followed immediately by relief that it would never be his.
Perhaps that was the first time fate had laughed at him.
And perhaps that letter could finally be his opportunity to atone for John’s death, the fire…for wanting Sophie for himself.
He would gladly hand over the dukedom and unburden himself of the unbearable weight of it. Once the boy was settled here with his guardians and the title properly passed, Shay could go back to being a soldier again. He could easily buy back into a colonel’s commission, perhaps even into a generalship if he called in enough favors. Combining that pay with the small allowance he should have had under his father’s will would be been enough to provide a good life for him and Sophie. Oh, they would never live in grand houses like Ravenscroft Manor or Malvern House in London, but they would still be more than comfortable. And utterly happy, with no more ghosts from the past to haunt them.
“There you are,” a soft voice called out from the doorway.
He turned away from the window to face her. Sophie. Dear God, she was lovely, even in a plain wool day dress and shawl wrapped around her shoulders against the cold. At moments like this, he simply could not believe she was his wife.
She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, a posture that seemed to fill the room with her presence even though she’d yet to step inside.
“I thought perhaps you might need a nap after dealing with whatever matter Pearson brought to you,” she teased. Then the amusement faded from her face, and she asked somberly, “Is it terribly bad news?”
In answer, he silently held out the glass of whisky toward her.
Stiffening, she pushed herself away from the door and crossed the room to him. Instead of drinking the whisky, she topped off his glass and handed it back, instinctively knowing he needed a long drink.
“There’s been a message from Scotland.” He nodded toward the letter in permission for her to read it.
With a puzzled frown, she picked it up. He saw the moment when she realized what it said, when her lips parted in shock and her hands began to shake.
Her stunned eyes met his. “Can this be true?”
Dear God, he hoped so. “It’s possible. The timing matches John’s university studies at St Andrews.”
“Then we have to travel north, to find out if the boy really is John’s.” She stared up at him with pleading eyes. “We have to help him.”
Shay’s mouth twisted at that. They had to help him? If it were true, the boy’s very existence would help them . “I’ve made plans to leave in the morning. The proof will be in the church marriage register. I need to see it—and the boy—with my own eyes.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.” He apologetically brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “The roads will be impassible for a coach, the weather too cold… I won’t put you at risk if the coach becomes stuck in the snow or mud, or if a storm blows up.” Her mouth hardened. He knew she was about to argue with him, so he added, “I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you when I could have prevented it.”
From the way her expression softened, she understood. “Then send Pearson in your place.”
“He offered, but I have to go myself. You know what it means if this message is true.” He took the letter from her hand and tucked it inside his waistcoat. “Everything about our life changes.”
She nodded, but he couldn’t tell if she was as happy about the possibility as he was.
“I’ll return within a sennight, and I promise to send word if I’m delayed.” Tilting her face up toward his, he sealed that promise with a kiss. “Trust in Pearson to help you in my absence.”
Another nod, this one as uncertain as before.
“Look on the bright side. You can use the time to make all the changes you want to Ravenscroft without me interfering.”
She laughed, yet he saw a watery glistening of tears in her eyes.
He slipped his arms around her to draw her against him, and she buried her face in his chest. He murmured in her ear in an attempt to soothe away her worry, “I think we have time for a nap. Are you feeling tired, my love?”
She nodded against his waistcoat and whispered, “Simply exhausted.”
He took her hand and led her upstairs to her bedroom.