THE EARL'S PREGNANT BRIDE (14 page)

And Melinda went back up to London that evening. All weekend, Rafe’s old girlfriend had been sweet and agreeable. And if she’d been giving Rafe more yearning glances, neither he nor Genny had spotted a single one. That night Genny admitted she’d been completely off base about Rafe’s old flame.

Rafe only said “I told you so” once.

They spent that week at Hartmore, together.

And on Friday, Geoffrey came home from school. They were all waiting for him outside the family entrance when his car arrived. He jumped out and ran to them, hugging first Brooke, then Eloise, then Rafe and finally Genny, laughing the whole time.

“There now,” he said, smiling broadly as they turned to go in. “You all know how happy I am to be home.”

To celebrate, they had his favorite, pork chops and chips, for dinner.

Brooke was all over him, her beautiful blue eyes constantly threatening to overflow with tears, insisting she’d been missing him terribly, promising him she was giving him a birthday party he would never forget.

His face fell.

Brooke cried, “What is that? A long face? What in the world are you upset about now?”

Carefully, he told her, “Mum, I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t
what,
for God’s sake?”

“The party, Mum. I don’t need that. I would rather just have a little cake and the family.”

Brooke made a disgusted sound. “Don’t be silly. You’re like an old man, my darling, I swear you are. Not even nine years old. And ancient already. It makes me much too sad.”

“I have a list of video games I want,” he suggested hopefully. “And a chart with minerals I’d like to have.”

“Minerals?” Brooke made the word sound like it tasted bad in her mouth. “What kind of minerals?”

“Rare rocks is what they are, Mum. I’d like specimens of quartz crystals and iron pyrites. And malachite. A fire agate. Oh, and I’d love a few geodes...”

“Rocks. You want rocks.”

“Yes, and the video games. That’s really all I’m needing. Please.”

She waved her hands. Both of them. “Of course you’ll have your video games. And the rocks, too, as many as you want. But there
will
be a party and it will be spectacular. We’ll have a magician, a waterslide, paintball out on the old archery field. We’ll have all your friends from the village. And Dennis and Dexter...”

Now Geoffrey was looking as though
he
might cry. “Not the Terrible Twins. Please, Mum.”

“Don’t call them that. That’s just rude. And of course they’re coming. Fiona says they can’t wait to see you.”

“Mum. They hate me. When no one is looking, they trip me and poke me and push me down.”

“Stop, stop.” Brooke put her hands over her ears like the spoiled child she was. “I don’t want to hear it. La, la, la. You know it’s not true.”

It was like watching a train wreck. Genny, Rafe and Eloise never knew how to stop it before the collision became inevitable.

That night, Eloise was the one who tried. “Brooke, dear, I thought the plan was to keep it small and—”

Brooke didn’t even let her finish. “Stay out of it, Granny.”

And Geoffrey cried out, “Yes! What Great-Granny said. I don’t want a lot of people. I go to
school
with a lot of people. When I come home to Hartmore and have my birthday, I want it to be just us.”

“Well, it’s
not
going to be just us and you’d better get used to it. I’m giving you a fabulous, unforgettable birthday party and that’s the end of it.”

“But I don’t want one!” Geoffrey shouted.

At which Brooke jumped up and waved her hands about frantically. “That’s it. That just cuts it. You’ve shouted at me. I mean it, Geoffrey. You’re giving me fits. It’s all for you and you don’t even want it—and I... Oh, well, I just can’t take it anymore.” And with that, she burst into tears and ran from the room.

Geoffrey watched her go with a look of abject misery on his face.

After a minute, Eloise stood and said what she always said whenever Brooke ran off in tears. “I’ll just go and have a word with her.”

But then Geoffrey delivered the shocker. “No, Great-Granny. Please sit down.”

His calmly uttered request was such a surprise to Eloise, she sank back to her chair without a word.

And he said so seriously, “I’ve been thinking a lot, about me and Mum and the way it always goes with us. I don’t want it to be like that anymore and I mean to do better, I really do. But she just...” He stopped himself, swallowed hard. “No. What I want to say is that I
will
do better.” He pushed back his chair. “So
I
will go and talk to her and make her stop crying. And we’ll have the party, and everything will be...” He seemed not to know how to go on from there.

Rafe said gingerly, “Geoffrey, if you don’t want the party—”

Geoffrey put up his little hand. “No. Uncle Rafe, I mean it. She surprised me is all. And the party will be fine. I will enjoy it very much, I’m sure.” And with that, he pushed in his chair in and went to talk to his mother.

Genny stared after him, aching for him. No almost nine-year-old boy should have to be that wise.

A few minutes later, mother and son came down together.

Brooke apologized for running off like that. And then she beamed them all a dewy smile. “Geoffrey has told me he wants his party after all. So we all have something lovely to look forward to.”

* * *

In the week between Geoffrey’s arrival from school and his birthday party, things went along pretty well, Genny thought. Brooke was all wrapped up in making the final arrangements for the big celebration.

Geoffrey was sweet and open, as always. And he seemed so happy to be home. He went riding with Rafe and he spent time in the gardens with Genny and Eloise.

By the end of the day Thursday, the giant waterslide had been set up not far from the lake and the archery field was ready for paintball. The magician would put on his show on the family side of the terrace. There was a candy-floss machine and one for popcorn, too. The East Terrace was done up in a carnival theme. The children would bring clean clothes for the magic show and the food and cake. Before that, they could get wonderfully wet and messy on the waterslide, in the aboveground pool Brooke had had erected nearby, and in the archery field playing paintball.

Thursday at dinner, Brooke told them that Melinda was coming. She would be arriving tomorrow afternoon. “She offered to come,” Brooke explained. “She’ll stay the weekend. With all the stress of the party, I need my friends round me.”

Melinda came by car. When she drove up to the family entrance at five Friday afternoon, Brooke ran out to meet her, crying glad greetings. The two hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

Genny watched them from the doorway, annoyed with both of them. It was Geoffrey’s birthday tomorrow, but as usual he would be lost in the shuffle of Brooke’s plans and Brooke’s friends. She only hoped they could make it through the party without Brooke staging one of her big, emotional scenes.

Fiona arrived a half an hour later—minus the twins and the banker husband. At dinner, she announced that her driver would bring the boys for the party tomorrow.

Dinner was at eight that night. Geoffrey didn’t join them. He’d eaten earlier.

“And besides,” Brooke said, “it’s nice now and then to have just the grown-ups, to take our time, enjoy our wine...” Melinda and Fiona both made eager noises of agreement.

Later, when Genny and Rafe were alone, she couldn’t resist remarking snidely, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Is the party for Geoffrey—or Brooke?”

“Do you really
need
to ask?” He smoothed her hair to the side.

She let out a slow sigh. “But Geoffrey does seem to be holding up all right, don’t you think?”

“So far, so good.” He brushed a trail of kisses out from her nape, along her bare shoulder.

She turned in his arms and settled herself against the pillows, sliding a hand up to finger comb his unruly hair. “Once I had to admit that Melinda wasn’t out to seduce you, I started to like her....”

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”

“I don’t know. Tonight, she seemed as bad a Fiona, seconding everything Brooke said. Laughing too much about things that aren’t even funny.”

“I think they’d all three had too much wine.”

“I think they all three
always
have too much wine—and I sound like a bitter old witch, don’t I?”

“You’re not the least—”

“Don’t you dare say it. And I just had a horrible thought. Do you think the twins will be staying over tomorrow night? I hope not. Geoffrey will be scarred for life.”

He frowned in thought. “It’s entirely possible. But then again, Fiona will probably send them home after the party. If they stay, she’ll have to look after them. She doesn’t ever seem up for that.”

Genny laughed. “Now
you
sound like the spiteful one. Good. At least I’m not alone. And you know, I haven’t seen much of the boys yet this year—just a quick hello at the County Show. Are they still as awful as Geoffrey says?”

He kissed the tip of her chin. “Worse, I’m afraid.”

“Dennis and Dexter. Seriously? Remember
Dennis the Menace?
And Dexter, the serial killer. Who names their sons after a menace and a serial killer?”

“Fiona, apparently.” He buried his face against her throat and chuckled. “And have you
met
the twins?”

“Ha-ha.”

“And wait a minute. I don’t think the
Dexter
series started until after the twins were born.”

“Well, that’s reassuring—although not a whole lot.”

“Stop thinking about the twins.”

“I can’t. They’re too scary.”

He started kissing his way down her body, slowly. “I have something to show you....”

She put on her bored voice. “Is it the same thing as last night?”

He lifted his head from kissing her breast. She gasped at the wonderful gleam in his eyes. “I’m afraid so.”

She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled him closer again. “Show me, then. Show me...everything. And do it for a long, long time....”

He made a rough noise of agreement. And then he got busy giving her just what she’d asked for.

Much later, as he slept in her arms, she thought about how much she loved him. She really did need to tell him so.

Life went by and anything could happen. She could live to regret not having said what was in her heart.

Even if he didn’t say it back to her, she wanted him to know.

Maybe after the weekend, when things had settled down a little. Yes. After the party.

That would be soon enough....

He stirred in her arms.

She kissed his cheek.
I love you.
She said it in her head. With all her heart.

But she failed to say it out loud.

Because she still couldn’t stand to think he might not feel as strongly as she did, that she loved him more and that put her at a disadvantage somehow. As long as she didn’t say the words, she could always imagine he felt the same....

* * *

“Rafe?” She knew he was gone from the bed before she opened her eyes. She stretched out her hand to the other side, his side.

Empty.

And then she sat up and switched on the lamp.

“Rafe?” She pushed back the covers and got out of the bed.

He wasn’t in the bathroom or the dressing room or the smaller bedroom beyond. The sitting room was empty, too.

She returned to perch on the edge of the bed and told herself to get back under the covers and go to sleep. He’d probably just gone down to the family’s kitchen for a snack. He did that now and then.

But she found herself feeling a little needy, a little lonely. She put her hand on her rounded belly and whispered to her baby, “I want your papa now.”

So, then. She would go and get him. If he was snacking, she would sit with him until he finished and they could come back up together.

She put on her kimono and slippers and left the suite. Tiptoeing along the first-floor hall, she turned down another hall to the back stairs, which were narrow, lit by low-wattage bulbs in the ceiling at each landing and descended at a sharp angle to the lower floor.

At the ground floor she stopped on the landing. Four more stairs led down into the family’s kitchen, which was smaller than the original main kitchen beneath the center of the house. The family kitchen had been created from a back sitting room forty years before and updated now and then as the decades went by.

But the back stairs didn’t look modern at all. The back stairs was a catacomb of narrow passageways all through Hartmore. They remained pretty much as they’d been over two hundred years ago, when Hartmore was built.

She hesitated there on the old, narrow landing, before turning and going the rest of the way down. The low light directly overhead cast odd shadows on the whitewashed wall. The kitchen wasn’t visible, not from there, not until she went down those last few stairs and emerged from the narrow back hall, which connected to the stairway there.

But she could hear something—movement?—in the kitchen. A dish clattered against a counter.

And a man said something.

Rafe.
She couldn’t make out the words, but she knew the sound of his voice, knew it instantly, knew it to her bones, to the deepest core of herself.

A woman spoke in a passionate whisper.

Genny’s stomach went hollow and her heart was suddenly pounding out a sick, hard rhythm under her breast.

She didn’t want to go down.

But she
had
to go down.

Her feet in the little red slippers felt as though they weren’t even connected to the rest of her. She looked down and they were moving, one step, and another.

She descended the last step and emerged from the short hallway. And saw Rafe in track pants and an old T-shirt. He stood by the big Wolf cooker, his back to her. On the counter, there was toast on a plate, something hot in a cup, a curl of steam rising up.

Melinda stood with him—right there next to him, oblivious to anything but him. The woman stared up at him in the same haunted, hungry way she’d done that morning three weeks before.