The Captain's Caress (44 page)

“Then her life’s not worth a groat.” Wigmore had grown up on the Douglas estate and he knew of the long-simmering hatred Gowan nursed for his former employers. “If she’s carrying Master Brent’s child, he’ll kill her and the child.”

“No man is insane enough to do something like that, not here in Scotland, not with King George on the throne.”

“Gowan’s capable of anything. He’s already committed one murder in trying to destroy Master Brent. Bend your mind to thinking what to do
after
it is born, for I tell you the earl will never allow it to be brought up as his heir, not if he has to hang from the gallows for it.”

Chapter 39

Summer sat staring at the dreary winter landscape. The snow-covered courtyard was as bleak as her thoughts, and she turned away from the window. This was the first time she had left her room since the earl’s attack nearly two weeks ago. She had come down to her parlor in the afternoon, content to do some needlework on a lace cap.

“Thank goodness I’m not very big yet,” she said to Bridgit, “or I’d be too large to move by spring.”

“A fat mother means a healthy baby,” Bridgit recited from her store of country sayings. “You can’t expect to have a big baby when you’re as skinny as a scarecrow.”

“Skinny!” exclaimed Summer. “I’m as big as a milch cow now. I hope it’s not twins.”

“You’re never having twins,” Bridgit pronounced confidently. “There’s hardly enough of for one.”

Summer looked up from her work, a little startled to see Gowan enter her parlor. “I would like to speak to my wife in private, Bridgit,” he said, holding the door open.

“I dare not leave the mistress,” the older woman objected, preparing to keep her seat despite all persuasion. “She still has no business being out of her bed.”

“I will call you if she shows signs of becoming faint,” Gowan said coldly. “I’m sure you
and
Wigmore will be just outside the door.” Summer studied Gowan carefully and was uneasy about what he meant say, but she was certain he didn’t intend to harm her.

“It’s all right, Bridgit. I’m sure the earl won’t stay too long.”

Bridgit opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again at a sign from Summer. She, too, had dismissed the threat of physical harm, but she knew the earl was never more deadly than when he was cornered. She gathered up her belongings. “Don’t keep her long. She never was strong, and that baby is taking more of her strength every day.”

“Then let us hope that she will soon be delivered of it.”

Bridgit sullenly passed through the door, and Gowan advanced toward the middle of the room. “I will not take much of your time. I just wanted to tell you what I intend to. do about this bastard of yours.”

Summer wanted to heap curses on his head, but she remained silent. Vilifying him could only make matters worse.

“Because of your swollen belly, everyone in the county knows you are with child, and thanks to Bridgit’s tongue they believe it to be my heir. Is there anyone who knows the falsity of that supposition?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve told no one, not even Bridgit, who the father is.”

“That seems to be the only sensible thing you’ve done,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’m sure you realize it is impossible, quite out of the question really, that I should allow the offspring of Brent Douglas to be reared as my own. That his child should be my heir is an eventuality too monstrous to even contemplate.”

“But where shall I go?” Summer asked. “I have no dowry, and I can’t support the child alone.”

“I don’t propose that you go anywhere or that you support the child. You must remain here as my wife. No explanation would cover your departure from Glenstal without discrediting me.”

Cold fear gripped her heart. “What are you going to do?”

“When you are nearing your time, I shall announce that I do not trust the local doctors with the safe delivery of anything so precious as my heir. I shall take you to Edinburgh to. be attended by specially chosen physicians.”

“And…”

“It will be announced that the child has been born dead. In reality, I will secretly place it in a foster home far from here.”

“I won’t let you!” Summer was too dazed to be able to move. She stared at Gowan, on her face a mixture of fear and doubt, but his calculating impassivity did not waver.

“You will have no choice. It will be arranged ahead of time and you will agree to it.”

“Nothing will make me abandon my child!” she declared adamantly.

“Even though it’s the spawn of a common criminal?”

“It is my child, too,” she said miserably.

“Why don’t you confess that you were in love with Brent Douglas,” Gowan demanded, now in a black fury, “that you couldn’t wait to fall into his arms every night?”

“I did fall in love with Brent,” Summer said simply, “more deeply than I had ever dreamed possible, but I didn’t fall in love willingly and I didn’t fall into his arms every night. I supposed it’s a judgement of sorts that he should love the medium of his revenge and I the man who seduced me, but it’s too bitter an irony to find myself wife to his enemy and to know his child is subject to your mercy.”

“I can find no sympathy for your moving tale. Even if things were as you say, a woman of character would have continued to revile the man and spurn his embraces.”

“No woman could be indifferent to Brent.” A sad smile of remembrance came to Summer’s lips. “I don’t think any woman ever tried.”

“And you call yourself an honest woman?”

“Yes. I tried not to love him, but I couldn’t help it. After a while it hardly seemed worthwhile to keep resisting. Then he took me to Biscay Island, and I knew he loved me as much as I loved him.”

“This tale is as mawkish as it is wanton. You are a lusting wench, and once this child is out of the way, I shall take pleasure in seeing that you have all the amorous attention you could possibly desire.”

“You will never be able to separate me from my child,” Summer cried. “I will never give my baby up.”

“Don’t force me to take drastic measures.”

“I shall run away.”

“Speak of that again and I shall lock you in your apartments and post a guard at the door until time for your delivery.”

Summer was beginning to think that she had truly lost. “Please let me keep my baby. I don’t want anything else. You can tell people both of us died.”

“That would be easy to arrange if it were the result I wanted,” Gowan admitted, and his cold, viper’s eyes told Summer that he would calmly murder them both if that suited his ends.

“You can be as grief stricken as you like, but I will spare your child only on the condition that you divulge the truth to no one. Should you do so, your offspring will not live to grow up.”

“No! ” The cry was a soaring wail of anguish torn from the very depths of Summer’s soul. “Don’t make my life more of a living hell than it already is!” She slid from the chair to the floor and rocked back and forth on her knees. “I beg of you, just let me go. I promise you’ll never hear of me again.”

“You must remain here as my wife.”

“Why? What can you want with a woman for whom you feel nothing but scorn and contempt, a woman who hates you and loves another man, a woman who bears the child of the one man in the world you loathe?”

“I find you very beautiful,” he said flatly.

“That’s not it,” Summer insisted. “My beauty hasn’t tempted you in all these months, so why should it now?”

“You’re wrong. It has tempted me quite often.”

“I don’t believe that’s it at all. There’s some other reason, and I demand to know what it is.”

“You’re in no position to demand anything.”

“I will make your life miserable. I’ll fight your every move. I’ll run counter to your every wish.”

“You can be dealt with,” Gowan said calmly.

“You can’t keep everything that happens in this castle a secret. Abuse me and it will cost you any remaining loyalty your people have. They already hate and despise you so much they might even be willing to strike a blow to help me.”

“Are you seriously trying to threaten me?” He found it hard to believe that this lone, fragile girl could actually think she could intimidate him.

“I’m trying to get you to tell me the truth. Why do you insist that I be your wife when you’d rather be married to almost anyone else in Scotland?”

“I’ll tell you, since you will have it, but it will do you no good.” His expression was so ugly Summer began to wish she hadn’t sent Bridgit from the room. “I inherited Glenstal from a distant cousin I remembered only from one short, disagreeable visit. All I knew of him was that he had eloped after a whirlwind romance and had then died quite mysteriously. Years later I saw a portrait of a young girl, done by a painter who had visited the Indies. The girl was the image of my cousin. I remembered that the girl my cousin had eloped with had been quickly married to someone else and sent off to the Caribbean.”

“My mother.” Summer was beginning to understand the tangled explanation.

“Exactly. My distant cousin was Frederick Boyleston. At the time, only a few people knew he had eloped with your mother; none knew that he had a child. Even I had no suspicion until I saw your portrait. You are Boyleston’s legitimate daughter and a possible claimant to these estates. I’ve never been able to find the records of that marriage and destroy them, but that’s unimportant now. As your husband I control your property. I had no choice but to go after you.”

“So you are as much tied to a wife you dislike as I am to a husband I loathe. That’s why you brought me back even though you never believed I was still a virgin.”

“It does seem an unfortunate tangle.”

“And I’m bearing the son of the man you tried to ruin, the grandson of the woman you wanted to marry and the man who was once your best friend.”

“Your perception is remarkable,” said Gowan. Summer suddenly smiled and then laughed. She tried to check herself, but her laughter began to erupt in uncontrollable bursts. Finally, she sank down upon the sofa, helpless.

“You’re hysterical.” Gowan feared the madness that had struck her during the voyage had reappeared. “I’ll call Mrs. Barlow.”

“No, don’t,” she managed to say. “She’d never understand.”

“Should I?”

“Don’t you see that the joke’s on you?” she asked.

“I can’t see any joke at all,” he said icily.

“You must see it,” Summer choked out through her laughter. “I’m the heir to the estates you inherited by mistake. You can’t get rid of me without losing the whole basis of your power because you’ve buried the money you stole from Brent into
my
estate to hide it from the world. And right here in my body is the one person who can rob you of everything you’ve struggled for your whole life. My child can destroy you and all your evil just by being born.”

“Take care you don’t drive me too far,” Gowan warned.

“I’m safe for now,” Summer said, rising from the sofa. “You don’t dare touch me after that foolish attack, and once everyone knows I’m the real heir to Glenstal you won’t dare to lay a hand on me.”

“You won’t be safe forever.” Gowan was chafing under the knowledge that he was cornered. “I still hold the power to give or deny life to your child.”

“But I shall discover a way to defeat you before he’s born,” Summer stated coldly, turning on him with a look of such hatred that Gowan was silenced. “You have given me the one thing I lacked: confidence. I shall beat you, Gowan McConnel, I swear it. I shall bring you to a ruin so shattering that you will never have the power to harm my child.” She then turned and swept from the room, allowing him no chance to respond.

Chapter 40

Impatient at being confined, Brent rose from his chair and stared out the porthole. “The storm is just about over.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of going on deck.” Smith looked worried. “The wet and cold will make you sick again.”

“If you tell me one more time how the four of you toiled to make sure I didn’t die, I’ll throw
you
into the wet and cold,” Brent threatened. Doing what good sense told him would speed his recovery had him completely out of temper. “I still haven’t forgiven you for keeping me in that bed an extra month.”

“It was just long enough for you to be able to get about on your own,” Smith said. “I was certain you’d head for Scotland the moment you were conscious, even though you knew you’d never make it.”

“And now you’re quite pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” Brent grumbled. “You actually
enjoyed
being able to make me do exactly as you said.”

“It was an experience I never expected to have,” admitted Smith, a trace of a smile on his lips, “but on the whole I’m pleased that it’s over. You were a very difficult patient.”

“And you’re an impudent dog.” Brent roughly disguised his affection for the man to whom he owed his life. He had been enraged when his mind had cleared and he’d found out what had happened to him, so he had continually abused Smith even though he knew the man was acting in his best interest. The constant verbal persecution kept his mind off what was really worrying him: what had happened to Summer?