A Duke Deceived (28 page)
Authors: Cheryl Bolen
Chapter Twenty-Nine
R
adcliff would surely win a wager that no one could ever reach Milford from London in less time than he. He had taken his best horse and would have ridden it day and night without stopping, had only the horse no need to rest. So great was his haste to see Bonny that he slept but a few hours at each coaching inn before pressing onward, his thirst to see her driving him like a rushing avalanche.
adcliff would surely win a wager that no one could ever reach Milford from London in less time than he. He had taken his best horse and would have ridden it day and night without stopping, had only the horse no need to rest. So great was his haste to see Bonny that he slept but a few hours at each coaching inn before pressing onward, his thirst to see her driving him like a rushing avalanche.
During the countless hours of his lonely ride he phrased what he would say to Bonny in hundreds of ways. Through misty mornings and blustering winds, over rugged glens and along soggy lanes, his thoughts remained constant. Always, it was how he would tell her how much he loved her. Confess how cruel and jealous he had been. Beg her to come back to him.
The last three-quarters of a year he had been such a fool. He hated his damned pride, pride that had prevented him from telling Bonny from the beginning that he loved her with a fierceness that was frightening. And it was his same, bloody pride that had kept him from confronting her when he saw her with Dunsford at the house on Kepple Street. If only he had not been so blasted proud. Why had he not laid bare his wounds so Bonny could have soothed them with the truth?
All the problems in their marriage had arisen over his inability to communicate with his wife. Now he was determined to open his heart to her and let her know how dearly he loved her.
Though he feared her rejection more than ever, he told himself that he had nothing more to lose. What pain could be greater than that which he had already suffered?
And another growing fear gnawed at him. He worried that the journey had been too much for Bonny in her condition. He worried, too, about their child. He prayed that his Barbara would be safe and well, and their baby thriving.
No muscle in his body was free from the aching of several days of heavy riding. The bitter northern cold had settled in his lungs, leaving him with a rumble in his chest and a deep, racking cough. And he was certain now he had taken a fever.
As night began to fall, pains stabbed his every limb and his head felt as if a hammer were slamming into it. He shivered though sweat poured from his body, and his wet hair clung to his forehead Radcliff was seized with a permeating chill that no amount of heavy clothing could slake. Feeling as if he were spinning into oblivion, he slowed his mount to a trot.
As he began to slide from the horse, his last foggy thoughts were of Barbara. His beautiful Barbara, whom he would never again see.
How foolish she had been to think she could purge Richard from her thoughts by removing herself from his presence, Bonny thought as she braced against the blustery North Country wind. She had wanted to recapture the happiness she had always known within the comforting walls of the old cottage, enveloped in the potent and unselfish love of her parents. But now she knew an ever greater love.
This land, this rugged hill she trod over, seemed steeped with his presence. Her eyes stung not from the winds but from the memories of the last time she had walked this overgrown path with Richard at her side. How fortunate she had been then. Perhaps she had not possessed his love, but she had had him.
What could she have done to have made him happy to be her husband? she wondered for the thousandth time. But she knew the power over his happiness lay in giving him his freedom. By her suffering, she had restored his well-being.
She pictured him as he had looked the first time he kissed her, so tall and strong, the wind whipping his honeyed hair, his greatcoat flapping behind him. His voice reassuring. Warmth spread through her as she remembered the sweetness of his kiss. She would trade her eternity to have those moments back.
Pulling her cloak more tightly about her, she climbed higher toward the place where she had first kissed him. She must have been mad to think she could be content now in the little cottage where she had once known so much love. Without Richard, contentment was as unattainable as the stars. The cottage—like her life—offered nothing but emptiness. An emptiness that could never be filled.
At the top of the knoll, she came to a stop. Despite the cold, this was where she felt warmest, for this place, more than any other, evoked his presence. God in heaven, would she ever lose her obsession over him?
Not as long as she remained here, where the very winds carried memories of Richard. Turning away, she sauntered down the slope. She knew what she had to do. The church had been wanting to purchase the old cottage. She would sell it and move to another village where she could free herself from the invisible chains of Richard’s possession.
Days later, Richard woke to the feel of a gentle hand on his brow. “Barbara? Barbara?” he feebly repeated.
“No, my lord, it is I, the wife of the farmer who found you lying near death in the mud,” said the kindly voice of an old woman.
He struggled to sit up in the clean bed, looking first at the plump woman in her simple dress and cap, then at the small stuccoed room. “How long have I been here?” he asked.
She gathered up the bleeding bowl and said, “A week. All’s ye needed was a warm bed and a little doctoring. Dr. Haygood said ye’ll be good as new this time next week.”
But Radcliff was not about to wait another week before seeing Barbara. The next day, cleanly shaven and having given hardy thanks—as well as a handful of gold sovereigns—to the farmer and his wife, Radcliff set off once again for Milford.
Late in the afternoon two days later, he rode up to the old parsonage where Barbara had grown up, a light mist beginning to fall.
He dismounted, then knocked loud and long at the weathered door, but no one answered, giving rise to his mounting gloom. Turning back to the afternoon’s gray fog, he looked toward the knoll where he had stood with Barbara on that long-ago day she had agreed to be his wife. And his heartbeat accelerated.
Wearing her old blue cloak, his lovely Barbara walked along the same small hill, silhouetted against the darkening skies, their unborn baby rounding into her cloak. His heart caught.
Radcliff began the climb toward her. Her back was to him, and she appeared so deep in thought she had not noticed that someone was intruding on her solitude.
As he got closer, she must have heard his footsteps, for she turned suddenly and faced him, her mouth opening as if to say something. But no words came.
A lump formed in his throat. He started to tell her how lovely she was, but he stopped. She had never seemed pleased over his praises of her beauty. Instead, he spoke his heart. “I was thinking you look just as you did on the day you made me the happiest man on earth.”
Her lashes lowered. “I then surely made you the unhappiest.”
He did not disagree. “I was very unhappy because I loved you too deeply.”
She lowered her head and spoke in a soft voice. “It is noble of you to feign such an attachment, Richard, but your preference for other company over mine speaks more truly than your words.”
He stepped toward her. “I feign nothing where you are concerned. It shames me to admit that my unhappiness was the result of my mistaken belief that you were in love with another man.”
“Another man?” She gazed at him, her eyes filling with tears. “There’s never been anyone else for me since the first time I beheld you.”
“I have done you an unpardonable injustice, Barbara. I believed you to be in love with Duns ford.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “Lord Duns ford! What a very peculiar notion.” She took a step toward him. “Did I not give myself to you completely, Richard?”
He quivered at the thought of how sweetly compliant she had always been in his arms. “The blame for my blind jealousy does not he with you, my love. I happened to see you leaving Number 17 Kepple Street with Lord Duns ford, then, remembering you dispatch a letter to him that night we left for Milford, I deduced that you had given your heart to him before you pledged your life to mine.”
“My visits to Kepple Street were not at all what you thought, sir.”
“Yes, I know,” he whispered throatily. “I’ve had a talk with Duns ford. I know all about your cousin’s secret.”
She looked at him squarely and declared, “I’ll have no more secrets from you.”
“And I will no longer be so bloody proud I fail to tell you how dearly I love you. And our baby.”
He stepped closer to her, stroking her cloak where their baby grew, a melancholy gaze transforming his handsome face.
Had she dwelt so much on her own misery that she had failed to consider Richard’s feelings? Bonny wondered. If only she had paid more heed to her husband. Why hadn’t she delved into the reason for his great dislike of Lord Duns ford? Why hadn’t she shared Emily’s dark secret with her own husband? And why had she not told him how deeply she loved him?
Did he truly love her as she loved him? Had he been torn apart as she had, imagining her in Duns ford’s arms as she had thought of him lying with Lady Heffington? Could he possibly have been bleeding inside as she had? She had only to look into his tortured face to know the answer to her question.
Almost weakened by the heady realization that it was within her power to provide balm to Richard’s wounds, Bonny gently trailed her cool hand over his warm forehead as her eyes raked over him—the golden hair swept back by the North Country winds, his sun-parched skin and reddened nose, the grim set of his mouth, the cleft furrowed into his square chin.
“My poor, beloved Richard. I am sorry to have caused you such pain. I should have been more honest with you.” Her arms circled him, her head resting softly against his chest.
He drew her to him and held her close for a long while, afraid to release her, to sever his lifeline. “Then you do not hate me?”
She looked up at him, and her hood slid off. “I have ached with my deep love for you. I could not tell you because I did not want to force a false declaration.” She swallowed. “I never could imagine that you loved me. I thought you the noblest man alive to offer for me.”
He crushed her against him, softly kissing her hair. “Twice now on this very spot,” he said throatily, “your words have given me utter happiness.”
IMPRINT: e-book HMB Series Specials
ISBN: 9781460863824
TITLE: A DUKE DECEIVED
First Australian Publication 2012
Copyright © 2012 CHERYL BOLEN
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