THE EARL'S PREGNANT BRIDE (5 page)

Brooke let out a cry. “Geoffrey! Oh, darling...” The waterworks started in again as she lifted the long hem of her robe and took off after him.

That left the rest of them standing in the entrance hall staring at each other. Genny felt awful, as though she’d been somehow at fault for Brooke’s tantrum. Worse than that, she worried for Geoffrey. What a nightmare.

Rafe reached out and drew her into his side. She went willingly, their troubles of the night before forgotten in that moment. He was so huge and warm and strong and just his touch made her feel better about everything.

Eloise shook her head. “So much drama, and it’s not even noon yet.” She went straight to Genny. “My dearest girl. Are you all right?” Genny pressed her lips together and gave a quick nod, to which Eloise whispered, “But of course you are.”

The others—Genny’s mother and father and Rory, too—appeared from the hallway then. They all three looked a little bewildered. No doubt they’d heard the shouting.

Eloise said. “Frances, do make sure that everyone has eaten.” She turned for the stairs. “I’ll just go and assure myself that things have settled down....”

* * *

They all went to the Morning Room. Genny and Rafe had breakfast. The others poured fresh cups of coffee. They visited, chatting about everyday things, everyone determined to put a better face on the day.

Eloise joined them. She said that Brooke would ride along with Geoffrey back to London. “And how about we all go out to the lake later?” Everyone agreed that the weather was beautiful and a day at the lake would be lovely. “We’ll have a picnic.”

“I’ll get a few more candid shots,” said Rory.

Adrienne nodded. “It’s an excellent idea.”

Brooke and Geoffrey appeared a few minutes later. Brooke was fully dressed, her makeup perfect, her manner subdued. Geoffrey’s hair was wet and slicked down. He wore his school uniform.

Eloise said, “Come along, you two. Eat before you go.”

So they filled plates from the buffet and joined the group. It wasn’t too bad. They all did their best to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It worked, more or less.

Brooke ate hardly anything. When she slipped her napkin in beside her plate, she turned a somber face to Genny. “Genevra, I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

Rafe started to say something, but Genny beat him to it. “Of course.” She pushed her chair back and followed Rafe’s sister out to the terrace garden.

They found a bench by one of the fountains. Brooke sat on one end, Genny on the other, with plenty of space between them.

There was a long, bleak silence.

Finally, Brooke said, “I’m sorry, all right? I’m a hopeless bitch. Everyone knows it. I’ve embarrassed myself and my family in front of Princess Adrienne and your father. I don’t know what gets into me.”

Genny tried to decide how to respond. Best to patch things up.

But anger, like a burning pulse, beat beneath her skin—for Geoffrey, for all that the woman at the other end of the bench insisted on putting him through. She tried to remind herself that Geoffrey was doing fine overall, that Brooke did love her son, she just didn’t really know
how
to love. Brooke inevitably managed to make everything that happened all about her.

Genny understood that Brooke felt left out of her own family. Edward had been the old earl’s favorite. Their mother had adored Rafe. Brooke had never been anyone’s special darling.

And then Genny had come along. From the age of five, Genny had been the princess of Hartmore. The earl had pampered her. Brooke’s mother had lavished affection on her and Eloise had welcomed her with open arms. Brooke remained nobody’s favorite—only from then on, she had Genny to blame.

Plus, there was the Geoffrey situation. Genny would have been wiser not to pay so much attention to him, not to love him so completely. But how could she help it? He was sweet and smart and funny. Genny’s heart had been his from the first time she saw him, the summer he was three, when Brooke had divorced her American husband and brought Geoffrey home to Hartmore.

“Nothing to say to me?” Brooke muttered, growing surly again.

Genny turned and faced the other woman squarely. “I accept your apology.”

Brooke stared back at her, defiant. She made a scoffing sound. “As if I believe you.”

Genny had a very powerful urge to scream. “What do you want from me, Brooke?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Everything you took from me?”

A sudden wave of nausea rolled through her. The baby didn’t like all this tension. She stood. “I know you resent me. I even understand why. But in reality, I didn’t take your place, and we both know it. That you feel somehow...left out, well, Brooke, that’s
your
feeling. You would be dealing with the same emotional issues whether I was here or not.”

Brooke sighed. For once, it wasn’t a dramatic sigh. She let her shoulders slump. “I promised Granny I would make things up with you. And I promised Geoffrey, too. Somehow, we have to learn to get on together.”

Genny put her hand against her belly and took a slow breath. “Fair enough. Let’s call a truce. Put some real effort into getting along with me. I’ll do the same. We’ll muddle through somehow.”

Brooke regarded her, narrow eyed, her head tipped to the side, her dark hair tumbling along her arm like a waterfall of silk. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Genny longed to deny it. She didn’t want to give Brooke the satisfaction of knowing for certain why Rafe had married her. But please. Brooke would know soon enough anyway. “Yes, I am.”

“Suddenly it all makes sense.”

Genny refused to rise to that bait. “Rafe and I are thrilled. So is Eloise.”

Brooke produced a slow, mean smile. “Allow me to congratulate you.”

“Thank you.”

“Granny’s asked me to go away, did you know? For a week. I’ll stay with Fiona.” Brooke’s lifelong friend had a house in Chelsea. “It’s partly a reprimand for my behavior this morning. But it’s mostly for you, of course. To give you time settle in as countess of Hartmore without having to deal with me.”

“Do you want me to tell Eloise to let you stay, is that it?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t dream of that.” Brooke stared up at her, defiant.

“Brooke, I’m not going to beg you to stay.” And who was she kidding? It would be a relief to have the woman gone.

“It’s fine.” Brooke gave a lazy shrug. “Time away from here with someone who loves me is just what I need about now.”

Genny wanted to grab her and shake her. “Why does it have to be my fault that you feel unloved at Hartmore?”

“Did I say I felt unloved?”

“You didn’t have to.”

Brooke made a humphing sound. “Well, you can take what I said however you want to.”

Genny asked with excruciating civility, “Was there anything else you needed to discuss with me?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then, let’s go back in.”

Brooke swept to her feet and they turned together for the house.

* * *

The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Brooke and Geoffrey left for London.

In the afternoon, the rest of them walked down to the lake, where they threw sticks for the dogs to fetch. Rory took more pictures and they shared a picnic. And that night, they all enjoyed a lovely dinner in honor of the bride and groom and the visiting Bravo-Calabrettis.

After the meal, Genny’s father and Rafe disappeared into Rafe’s study. Eloise pleaded exhaustion and went to bed. Genny, her sister and her mother went out to sit at an iron table under the stars in the terrace garden. It was good to have a little time together, just the three of them.

At a quarter past eleven, her father and Rafe came out. Genny glanced up and Rafe met her eyes....

Her heart gave a lurch, and a prickly, hot shiver raced down the backs of her knees. Would he leave her to sleep alone again?

She really had no idea what he would do. And she used to think she knew him better than anyone. Those days were over. Now she hardly knew him at all.

Her mother and sister got up. Everyone said good-night.

Rafe and Genny were left alone. He held out his hand to her.

So. He was coming upstairs with her, then? Her skin felt overly sensitized suddenly. And her breath came short.

She rose and went to him.

* * *

“What happened with Brooke this morning when you went outside?” he asked.

They’d taken turns in the bathroom, though there were two sinks and plenty of room in there. Now they lay, propped on piles of pillows, side by side in the bed. He wore his boxers and she’d put on a short summer nightgown much less revealing than the one she’d worn the night before. It tied with pink bows high on her shoulders.

The lamps on either side of the bed cast a soft glow across the bedcovers—and over the powerful planes and angles of her husband’s broad chest. He had the body of a laborer—everything hard and big and honed. And every time she looked at him, her stomach hollowed out with longing. The crescent scar looked more pronounced than ever in the slanting lamplight.

He was watching her now, eyes black as pitch beneath the strong shelf of his brow. His inky hair curled on his wide forehead. His skin was brown all over, rich and dark against the white pillowcase. “About Brooke?” he asked again, one black brow lifting.

She shook herself from her trance of hopeless yearning and answered him. “We called a truce and agreed to get along with each other. And I told her about the baby—or rather, she guessed.”

He stared at her intently, as though seeking a point of entry. Or maybe testing her expression for lies. “Did she make you want to strangle her?”

“Only a little bit.”

He made a low sound—of frustration, or annoyance. “I can’t believe Geoffrey’s not a holy terror, the way she carries on.”

She bumped him with her elbow, a tap of reassurance. “Well, he’s not a terror and shows no signs of becoming one.”

“Gen. He ran away this morning.”

“Yes. But almost every child runs away at one time or another.”

“Did you?”

She thought back. “No. But I considered it. Everyone in the family was so much more adventurous and exciting than I ever was.”

Humor lit those black eyes. “You considered running away to make yourself more exciting?”

“I did, yes. And I happen to know you spent most of your first thirteen years running wild all over Hartmore. You didn’t
have
to run away to be exciting.”

He actually leaned a fraction closer. He smelled of toothpaste and very faintly of cigar smoke. She’d never much cared for the smell of cigars. But on him, it worked.

On him, since those four days in March, everything worked.

And what were they talking about?

She remembered. “And about Geoffrey...”

“Yes?” Low and rough and so, so lovely.

“He has you and Eloise. And Brooke may be a mess, but she does love him. I think he knows that.”

“
And
he has you.” He said it softly.

“Yes. Yes, he does—and what exactly went on with you and my father in the study for all that time tonight?”

“Cigars. Brandy. A little fatherly advice.”

“Was it awful?”

“Not at all. I’ve always liked your father. He’s wise. And he’s kind.”

“What advice did he give you?”

“Sorry.” He touched her chin, a breath of a touch that sent darts of sensation zipping all through her. “I can’t tell you.”

“Oh. So what happens in the study stays in the study?”

“Something like that.” His index finger went roving along the ridge of her jaw, up under her hair. “You always smell of roses. And vanilla, too.”

Yearning made her chest ache. Heat pooled low down. “It’s my perfume,” she heard herself whisper, a lame response if there ever was one.

He gave a slow, lazy shake of his head. “No. Forever. Since you were a child. Do you know that any time I smell roses, I think of you?”

She stared into those wonderful, dangerous eyes of his. “What a beautiful thing to say.”

He traced the shape of her ear, tugged gently on a lock of her hair. All the breath seemed to have fled her body. She was absolutely still, waiting.

Hoping.

If she didn’t do anything to chase him off, would he make love with her tonight, kiss her and hold her and touch her all over?

He clasped her bare shoulder, his thumb flicking the pink satin bow that held up her nightgown. And then he leaned even closer. His rough cheek brushed her smooth one. She heard him draw breath through his nose, scenting her. “A little musky now. And creamy, too, beneath the roses and vanilla. That’s the grown-up Gen. The woman.
My
woman now.”

She drew a shaky breath. “Oh, Rafe...” She wanted—everything. His big body pressed against her, naked. Him inside her, moving, blowing the world away to nothing, shattering all the barriers.

They were frightening to her, the barriers. And they all began with Edward and the things Rafe wouldn’t tell her about the night of the accident, about the secrets of his heart.

But then, well, he
had
married her, and brought here to the one place she’d always wanted to be, brought her to Hartmore to live with him and Eloise—and Geoffrey, whenever he came home. And their baby.

Their baby would grow up here. It was her lifelong dream come true. He’d given her everything. Her heart’s desire.

She could wait—she
would
wait—until he was ready to tell her the dark things he was keeping from her. Until he was willing to forgive himself for whatever had happened the night Edward died.

He turned his head and his lips touched her ear, sending sparks across her scalp, down the side of her throat. “That first time I kissed you—really kissed you—at the villa?”

“What about it?” It was in the foyer. She’d pounded on the front door until he’d finally let her in. And then he’d asked her, please, to leave him. To go away and not come back. And she’d started shouting at him for shutting her out, for refusing to see her when he needed her most. For four whole months, he’d avoided her. When she’d gone to Hartmore for the funeral, he was still in the hospital recovering from his injuries. But he was conscious. He’d had visitors. Yet when Genny went to see him, he’d made the nurses turn her away.