Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ROWEN
The cry cut through him—thin, sharp. Impossibly vulnerable.
Impossible.
Rowen’s pulse came to a halt. For one suspended instant, he was no longer standing in Tidesfar, but in another house, in another chamber, dim and silent, where that sound had never come. Where they had waited, but it never came.
He forced air into his lungs. Forced the memory down into the abyss of his soul where it belonged. His head drew back. Zandra did not speak; only her throat made the movements of swallowing. He remained still. “Zandra?”
“It is a child.”
“A child?” The word tasted foreign as it fell from his lips.
“I brought him from Jersey.”
A heaviness filled his gut. “Zandra?”
“A baby. Frederica gave birth to the child right before I arrived.”
“Frederica Ashton had a baby?”
“She did.”
“And now she’s dead?”
“And I took the child. Rosamund was about to give the baby away to any family that would take it, but I would not allow it.”
His limbs would not move. “You…”
“I could not abandon him.” Zandra slid her palms over his chest, and he went still beneath her touch. “His mother paid a horrible price.”
It came rushing back now. Poison. Frederica dead.
“A price for what? Who the devil would want her dead, and do it in such a cruel, premeditated manner?”
“No one wanted Frederica dead. The poison was meant for me.”
The blood surged through his veins once more, loud and hot. “You?” The word tore out of him, sharp and feral. His hands curled into tight fists as if he might strike something, someone.
“Come.” She took his arm and led him out of her bedchamber, down the hall to the nursery. She opened the door and sunlight streamed from the room. The familiar deep blue curtains seemed lighter in tone, the dark gold wallpaper, brighter.
Zandra’s maid turned abruptly, and Zandra gestured at her with a tilt of her head, and the girl left.
Zandra led him to a cradle, and therein lay a small baby, its tiny mouth puckered as it stared at his wife and then turned.
Its gaze settled on him and did not move, as if recognizing a presence it did not yet understand.
Something tightened low in his chest.
Zandra lifted the child easily, speaking to it in soft hushed tones, but he could not catch the words for the buzzing in his ears.
“It’s a boy.”
“Who is the father of this boy?”
Zandra finally lifted her gaze to him. “I thought he could be yours.”
The world tilted.
“Mine?” The word scraped out of him.
“Frederica must have been with child when we last saw her at Greywick, when she left us.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“She denied it. She told me some thrilling tale of a mysterious Frenchman she met when she first arrived in the Channel Islands, but I would not believe it. If there were any chance that he was yours, Rowen… but even if there were no chance, you must know I would not have left this infant vulnerable and alone in the world. The last time I saw Frederica, I assured her I would keep him safe. I promised.”
His lips tightened. “And what is your intention in bringing him to England?”
“To raise him as our child.”
His head lifted as if to find more air to breathe, but it was pointless.
“Rowen, it does not matter to me that he is not of my blood. I would love him as my own.” Her hand went around the child, who only continued to stare at him, unwavering, patient. “I shall not give him up.”
Rowen’s fingers flexed at his side.
“He needs us, and we need him.”
“Oh, Zandra…he cannot be mine.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Mrs. Ashton and I only shared a bed once.”
“Once?”
“At the very beginning of our agreement.”
“But there were so many occasions where—”
“On those occasions, she would service me, but we only had full congress that once,” he bit out. He turned away and went to the window. “I engaged her as my mistress only as a ploy to gain access to information on Enggers. To insult him. Drive him mad. You know this.”
“I do, but…Rowen?” She crossed to him, her temple furrowed. “I always assumed you …”
“I did not. We did not.”
“But why?” Her voice trembled. Had he shocked her?
“I did not want her, Zandra. I only wanted you.”
Her lips parted, but she said nothing, only stared at him, the colour draining from her face. His words, their meaning, moved through her as though he had reached back through time and altered every moment and memory, every glance, every touch. Her eyes narrowed and widened. Swift recalculation.
“That child is not mine.” He moved closer to her. “Although I am in awe of your passion to save the orphan and provide me with a blood heir no matter his mother, it is all for naught.”
“It is not. He is ours.” Her resolution pierced his chest.
“Zandra, he—”
She pushed back her shoulders. “Your cousin Arthur is waiting to take all that is Oakley from you. He has seven children, Rowen, four sons, and we have this child. This innocent boy is our only hope, and we, in turn, are his.”
Hope.
In a brutal twist of fate, they had lost their child—a life they had made together, gone before it had even drawn breath. And then hope had been cruelly snatched away from them. This child had lost his mother in another brutal turn. But he was alive. Here. Now.
The child murmured and cooed. A simple sound, playful and pure, which filled the extravagant baroque nursery with a burst of innocence, spontaneous and uninhibited, and entirely his.
Rowen met his wife’s steady gaze, and something sharpened within him. Zandra did not act rashly. She acted with purpose and intention. With conviction.
Once, despite her uncles, she had chosen to step into his path in the woods and altered the course of both their lives. She had not yielded to circumstance or fear.
She did not yield now. Now, she stood before him, clear-eyed in the face of brutal injustice, resolved to claim the future.
Their future.
She rocked the child gently in her arms, a smile brightening her face as the babe’s small hand reached out, his fingers unfurling toward her. Reaching for warmth. For connection. Belonging.
Wasn’t Zandra reaching?
Rowen’s pulse beat harder. Hadn’t they always reached for one another?
He had never associated marriage with love. Yet for them, love had begun long ago. Before vows. Before loss. Before either of them knew what it was, understood its force. It had always been there, pulsing between them, steady and insistent, shaping the course of their lives.
He wanted the life he and Zandra had begun. He wanted her. He’d only ever wanted her.
“Zandra…” he whispered roughly.
“Say yes, Rowen.”
The child’s tiny fist seized hold of the garment at her chest, tugging on it.
Zandra’s hand flew to the child’s hand. “There is something else—” From her décolletage, she produced a folded letter.
“Our dear friend, Stephan, gave me this poem for you. He told me to bring it to you myself, and at once. That he came into information that you have been waiting for, and is of the utmost importance.”
His eyes narrowed, his pulse quickened as he took in the tightly folded paper in her hand.
“This, too, is why I quit Jersey post-haste. And this, too, is why I am grateful you sent me Morgan when you did.” She placed the letter on the small table by the cradle. “I have not read the verses. Stephan said you would understand this poem. Only you.”
Slowly releasing itself from the creases and folds she’d kept it in all this time, the poem expanded on its own, unfolding, opening.