Chapter Ten
Rafe sighed away his frustration and refilled his lungs with a bracing breath, but it did nothing to buoy his dismal spirits.
The day had been a disaster.
After receiving the note from Mrs. West, his housekeeper, he’d been too concerned over May’s health to be much for conversation on the carriage journey back to London.
His head had been too muddled with horrible scenarios to be trusted to explain everything to his new wife adequately.
Now, the time for the full truth had come far sooner than he’d anticipated, and he had to finish tearing open the wound so everything could heal and (he hoped) his marriage to Victoria might move forward on sturdier ground.
The situation was not ideal, but maybe it would be for the best. He’d kept his wards secret for months at that point; revealing their existence to Victoria could only be a relief.
Couldn’t it?
Rafe handed his niece back to Nan, murmured a request that he be notified if anything else was needed or if there was a change in May’s condition, saw them off toward the back stairs, and turned back to his wife.
They were finally alone in the sparse foyer, so silent they would be able to hear a mouse sneeze in the wall.
He cleared the unease from his throat before speaking.
“This was not the homecoming I’d planned for you.
” And that was the truth of it. He’d hoped to spend the first part of their honeymoon trip just the two of them, naked more than they were clothed, and then, when she was sufficiently starry-eyed and sated, he planned on revealing to her that he’d inherited the care of his sister’s children…
and that he’d been struggling to provide for their care and maintain the lifestyle expected of him as Viscount Blackwood.
He’d hoped to soften the blow with a home that had been renovated in their absence, and a full staff befitting the household of a viscount.
All of that had been blown to hell with the arrival of that note.
He wished his reaction had been less extreme, but his life had been one tragedy after another as of late.
He could hardly be blamed for rushing back to London when he learned of May’s illness.
Rafe ran a hand through his hair and wondered at how different his life was from what it had been less than half a year prior.
“No?” Victoria’s tone was deceptively calm when she finally spoke. “Did you plan on having even more surprise children present?”
Normally, he might have been amused by her sass, but he found he couldn’t muster it.
He also did not think she would appreciate his making light of the situation.
Even if her words might have been interpreted as levity, he knew her better than that.
Despite her kindness in the face of Dominic’s deplorable manners, the tightness of her full lips and the lack of sparkle in her eyes warned Rafe that he’d now trodden into dangerous territory.
Then, a nauseating possibility struck him straight in the gut and demanded to be immediately voiced.
“You do not care for children, then?” Had he made a horrendous miscalculation and assumed she would enjoy their presence as he did?
Her brows twitched. “It is not that I do not care for children; I merely do not believe their existence should be sprung upon one as a by-the-by.”
Rafe inclined his head. That was fair enough.
“The upstairs rooms have yet to be prepared, so let us go to the parlor to speak.”
Rather than accept his arm, Victoria brushed past him and strode in the direction he’d indicated.
When they entered the room, however, the back of Rafe’s neck immediately heated with shame and regret.
Like the rest of the home, the space was immaculately clean, but it remained undeniably worn and shabby.
The papering had once been cream- and hunter green stripes, but it had yellowed and faded over the years.
The frames of the furniture were polished and gleaming, but the once-emerald fabric of the upholstery had threadbare wounds nearly white from age and consistent use.
The most pathetic part of it all was that this room was one of the better ones in the home.
Generations of poor management of the estate, careless spending, and lack of foresight had left Rafe with the dregs of what it meant to be a titled lord.
Land that could have been profitable had been sold to cancel debts; money was invested in industries that had been shaky at best; necessary improvements to holdings hadn’t been made, causing tenants to flee for better circumstances.
As for Rafe’s father, the man had been so listless from grief that he’d paid no attention to the well-being of his estate, allowing less than scrupulous managers and solicitors to skim more than their share or make unadvisable financial decisions to run the Blackwood coffers nearly dry.
As Victoria’s keen eyes danced over every surface in the space, he knew it was already apparent to her that he’d hidden the dire straits of his finances from her, as well as the existence of his three wards and last remaining close family.
Rafe cleared the emotion from his throat.
“May I ring for refreshments?” he offered, but his wife declined with an immediate shake of her head.
He inclined his head in understanding and took up a position near the hearth.
Every one of his muscles was unbearably taut, poised for a potential battle he hoped was not in store.
Everything about this was wrong. Guilt bubbled up from beneath where his heart resided in his chest—as unfamiliar a sensation as it was discomfiting.
He told himself that he hadn’t really done anything wrong.
He’d had every intention of explaining his situation to Victoria, and he was far from the first lord to wed an heiress for a quick infusion of funds into a nearly destitute title.
Then why was he so bothered by the wariness flitting behind her eyes, the tenseness in her full lips, the pensiveness that had enveloped her demeanor like a shroud?
His only hope lay in her silence and willingness to accompany him into the room for an explanation. Whatever emotions she held in check beneath her deceptively placid surface, she thought enough of him—or, at least, their marriage—to give him this chance.
His expression more serious and sober than Victoria had likely ever witnessed from him, Rafe began his explanation.
“I was the second child born to the fifth Viscount Blackwood. The first was a daughter, Alice.” This was the first time Rafe had spoken his sister’s name since her death, and the sound of it unleashed shards of glass to prick at his throat and behind his eyes.
“She was already ten years of age when I was born, and our parents had given up hope of ever producing an heir. Alice stood in when she was no more than a child, herself, after our mother died from childbed fever.” Victoria pressed her fingers to her lips in surprise at that raw revelation.
“The old viscount never recovered from the loss of his wife…and he never stopped blaming me for her death.” His conversational tone belied the harsh reality of the statement.
He could tell Victoria of all the times his father had called him a disappointment, struck him out of his own pain and frustration, blatantly accused a child of causing the death of his own mother, but he did not.
He forced those memories back down his throat and shoved them behind the locked door of his soul.
“Alice did what she could to shield me from his wrath; she played buffer between us until she met Lord Croftburne and fell in love. I couldn’t begrudge her finding her own happiness—not after she’d given so much of herself to me—but I knew her leaving would create more unpleasantness at home.
“I threw all my efforts into carving out my own life away from the grief within these walls. Generations of Blackwood lords made foolish investments and spent carelessly, but the fifth viscount…” His voice trailed off for a moment before continuing.
“He was too blinded by his grief to see everything he owned falling around his ears. When he died a few years ago, I was left to pick up what few pieces remained.”
“And Alice?” Victoria whispered, as if fearing she already knew the answer.
“Nine years of blissful marriage ended with the broken spoke of a carriage wheel,” Rafe answered flatly.
The way he’d shattered at the news of her death and that of her husband far overpowered any modicum of grief he’d experienced at losing his father only a few years before that.
His world had buckled around him; nothing had felt quite solid any longer.
For so long, he’d protected the feeble spark of hope that he and Alice might one day live life as siblings without the pall of their father’s grief enshrouding their existence and coloring their every word and calculated action so as not to attract the old man’s misplaced ire.
That hope had been extinguished with an unfortunate accident on a rutted road as she and her husband had been traveling to visit his dying mother.
Alice had been recently out of childbed, but had insisted that the short journey wouldn’t overtax her.
More than once, Rafe had cursed her husband’s inability to deny Alice anything; more than once, he’d bitterly and unfairly wished Croftburne had traveled alone in that carriage and had been its only victim.
Rafe could have helped heal Alice’s broken heart, but he was helpless against a broken neck.
“Oh, Rafe…” Victoria’s voice cracked. Her glittering eyes jerked him back to the present.