Chapter 5
Five
Sir Elias Drake,
Miss Máira Blair was horrified honoured by my blundering proposal, but rejected my suit. There truly is a God. She is with child. Do the right thing, you damned worthless arse and ‘Sir, if you argue word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.’
Astley
—The second drafted letter written by Simon Benjamin Clark, Earl of Astley to Sir Elias Louis Alistair Drake as Simon recovered from his injuries.
He wrote it a month after Caillen’s sister, Miss Máira Blair refused his proposal of marriage.
The first letter was thrown into the fire when he determined it to be illegible.
After his second draft, he decided to delete his Shakespearean quote from The Two Gentlemen of Verona from the final letter.
No one understood his references to the bard’s famous works, except the woman he loved.
Simon woke to the sound of her voice directing servants within his household.
“Bloody hell.”
Even on his deathbed Caillen wouldn’t give him peace. He thought he was rid of her. Ross had given his word she would not return. Obviously, his best friend had succumbed to the charms of his blasted duchess. So much for childhood bonds when a woman chose to come between you.
He slowly sat up in his bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The growth of his beard spoke of only a few days without shaving. Had his valet shaved him since he’d been home? Where was Chalmers?
His door slowly creaked open, and a blond head of hair attached to the most beautifully irritating woman he’d ever been plagued with knowing, poked inside. Their eyes met and she beamed. Beamed. At him? Was that even possible? Had he died and gone to heaven?
He gave himself a mental shake. Most definitely not. Saint Peter would bar the gates to his entry.
“You’re awake.”
“Unless I’m dead. Why else would you be smiling at me? Of all the people of the ton, I don’t believe you have ever graced me with such a joy.”
“That’s because you are alive.”
“You hate me.”
“Hate is such a strong word.”
“A word you’ve used quite often when expressing your opinion of me.”
“Pfff.” She waved her hand in the air as she walked into his bedchamber as if it were her own drawing room, and he was suddenly acutely aware of being naked under the covers.
“You annoy a person to the point they don’t have any words left in their head but the four-letter variety,” she said.
He could think of a four-letter word he wanted her to say over and over.
Fuck me, Simon. Fuck me harder! Hard. Fuck me hard.
He pushed his cock down before she observed his natural morning condition that was stirring to life even more with the visions he was trying to block out of his head.
Damn and blast, he should have put on a new pair of smalls last night, but he’d been too exhausted to do anything but tear his smalls from his body and fall into bed after the fire had been dealt with.
He certainly wasn’t going to ask one of his servants to bathe or dress him.
They’d carried him all over the house most of the night. Where was that damned Chalmers?
“I’m naked,” he confessed. Maybe she would leave.
“I’ve seen you naked every day for the past three and a half weeks. Do you think today will be any different?”
“Today was supposed to be different. I banished you from my home. Where is Chalmers?”
“Your valet is no longer in your employ. I’m told when you were kidnapped, he was so distraught, he had to find a new position for his peace of mind. As for why I am here, I invited myself back, along with my sister.” She turned toward the door and yelled, “Máira!”
Good lord, her younger sister was here as well? This would not stand. It could not. “Where is Ross?” He demanded.
“He went home to be with his wife.” She turned toward the door. “Where is that girl? Máira!”
“I do not think it’s proper for a young miss—”
The miss in question walked into his room without hesitation and dipped into a curtsey. He sighed and pulled up his bedclothes.
“You’re looking much better than the last time I saw you, Astley.”
“The last time you saw me I was clothed. All the ladies prefer me naked.”
“Astley!” Caillen exclaimed.
Máira merely laughed, yet despite her gaiety, it was blatantly false.
He glanced at Caillen to see if she was aware of the tension in Máira’s brow and the flat expression of her eyes that spoke of a sadness he understood too well.
Caillen was busy pulling clean clothing out of his closet as if she planned to dress him.
Not bloody likely. To make matters worse, Máira was standing near the door looking a bit peaked as she brought her hand to her stomach.
“Are you well, Miss Máira?”
Her hand went back to her side, fear making her movements stiff. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“Because you look a bit green around the gills, as if you might cast up your accounts.”
Máira’s eyes widened and she bit her lower lip, an expression he had seen many times throughout years of revelry and too much spirits. She was definitely trying to avoid losing her breakfast.
Simon looked toward Caillen. “You do recognize the signs, don’t you?”
Caillen looked toward her sister. “Signs of what?”
Simon grabbed the empty wash basin on his nightstand and held it out to Máira, who rushed forward and grabbed it.
Within seconds she was retching and Caillen was racing to her side, instead of his.
He grabbed the linen from his nightstand and passed it to Caillen who exchanged it for the basin when her sister was done.
Caillen didn’t, however, touch her sister in comfort.
“Sit down, Máira, before you fall down,” he ordered in a gentle tone. She was in no condition to argue.
“I don’t think she should be in here. I don’t want you to have a relapse.”
“It’s not contagious,” he advised her.
“You don’t know that, Astley.” Caillen argued, because if anyone would, she would.
“Is it contagious, love?” he asked.
Máira’s eyes welled with tears as she shook her head back and forth with a solemnity that nearly broke his heart for her, and himself.
Bloody hell. For the first time since he met Caillen she was willing to converse with him.
Yet now, not only did he have to push her away for her own safety, he had to go and do the one thing that would ruin any chance of winning her heart in the future.
“I would get down on one knee if I could, Máira, but as we all know that is impossible at the moment. So Máira, love, would you do me the honour of becoming my countess?”
Caillen’s gaze shot to his. “Your what?”
“No, Astley. I won’t do that to you,” Máira whispered as the tears spilled over.
“Don’t answer now. Give it some thought. With me you will be safe, our child will be safe, and no one will speak ill of our babe.”
“Your what?” Caillen’s eyes were as large as saucer’s, her bow-shaped mouth dropped open in disbelief as she looked between the two of them.
“Máira is going to have my child.”
“Your child?” Anger began to slip into her countenance. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed and he was thankful she had set the basin in the hall, otherwise he was certain he’d be wearing Máira’s breakfast.
“When exactly did you seduce my sister?”
“He didn’t,” Máira insisted, the tears continuing to spill down her cheeks.
“I did, on the ship on our way back from France. She helped rescue me from the French, and I couldn’t resist her. Close the door, Caillen.”
“‘To make such means for her as thou has done and leave her on such slight conditions,’” Caillen spat.
“Yes, I have the same qualities of Shakespeare’s Turio in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” He acknowledged.
“You seduced my sister while sporting a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, broken ribs and broken finger on top of being ill?”
“What can I say, it had been months…close the door, Caillen.” He nodded to the door where a maid was picking up the basin.
Caillen walked over and closed the door harder than was necessary. He suspected she’d held back as much as possible because when she turned to face him, it was Máira who kept her from charging him like a hellcat.
“It is not his,” Máira insisted with her hands up to block Caillen from attacking him.
“I don’t believe you.”
It was as if Caillen had slapped her sister in the face with her vitriol. Máira stepped back and suddenly her manner was just as confrontational as Caillen’s.
“You are not the only one to have loved and lost, Caillen.”
There was nothing Máira could have said that could have been worse. If anyone knew that, it was Simon. “Ladies,” he interjected.
“Shut up, Astley,” they said in unison.
“Trouble’s brewing,” Charlotte squealed and began flapping her wings incessantly.
Caillen took a deep breath as if attempting to calm herself, but it would be a feat of angelic proportion for her to not show the venom he knew she felt in that moment.
When she finally did speak, her tone was softer, if still clipped.
“You have the chance to be with the man you love, Máira. He’s offering to marry you. ”
Except he wasn’t the man she loved.
“Go to hell, both of you.” Máira seethed before she headed toward the door, ready to push through her sister if Caillen hadn’t stepped out of the way first. When she exited, she didn’t even attempt to hold back on her anger. The door slammed so hard, a painting in the hall crashed to the floor.
Caillen closed her eyes, shutting off her expression from him. He couldn’t stand it.
“Caillen—”
“Don’t, Astley.”
“Let me explain.”
“What is there to explain?”
“There is everything.”
Her voice was calm and modulated. “You took advantage of a young woman, my sister.” She emphasized their relationship as if he hadn’t been aware of it up until that moment.
“Left her pregnant and then proposed to her out of a sense of guilt. Not love, just another duty you were obligated to perform to right a wrong. Then you had the audacity to flourish it up with false terms of endearment.”
“I shouldn’t have used them.”