The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (45 page)

The door shut with a hard, final thump and for Ruaidri, it was the most awful sound in the world.

* * *

Nerissa trudged upstairs, head down to conceal her damp eyes as Mira’s father Ephraim was coming down, frowning as he tried to set the watch he carried in his hand. He muttered a greeting and continued on, and she slid quietly into the room that she and Ruaidri had been given.

The bed where they had made love just an hour or so before lay as she’d left it when she’d thrown back the covers, gone to the window to watch her husband melt away into the darkness, and seen shadowy figures move out from behind the trees at the end of the drive and begin to follow him. It surprised her that anyone would be watching the house in the last hour before daybreak. It didn’t surprise her to find out that it had been her own brother.

Her blood running cold, she had charged from her room. She’d raced past Brendan as he’d been coming up the stairs with a breakfast tray, told him what she’d just seen and flown outside, trying to catch up to her husband and his pursuers before it was too late. And it almost had been. She saw again the vicious fight, both men so well matched, heard the brutal blows and seen again that awful moment as Lucien, insane with rage, had held a knife to her husband’s throat. Nerissa knew her brother. She knew the depths to which he would go, the lengths to which he had gone for other members of his family to protect those he loved.

And she knew that he would have killed Ruaidri right then and there if she had not been there to intervene.

She sat down on the rumpled bed, her eyeballs aching from lack of sleep, exhaustion, and grief, and the still surreal claim on Mira’s part that she was pregnant.

Pregnant.

Could she be? Well, why not. She and Ruaidri had consummated their marriage on the day they’d exchanged vows a month and a half ago. They had come together often on the voyage across the Atlantic. It was how babies were made. It was how babies had always been made.

Pregnant.

And it certainly explained the fact she her menses were late. Very late. It probably explained her unexpected and sudden tears, her jealousy and high emotions when Ruaidri had refused to discuss this Dolores-creature, and the fact that her nipples felt tender and raw, as well.

Again, the image of Lucien and the knife, Ruaidri half-conscious and about to die, rose up in her mind.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Nerissa said woodenly, hastily wiping away her tears.

She’d half-expected it to be her husband. But it was Mira Merrick, her hair down around her shoulders and one hank of it tucked behind an ear. She came and sat on the bed next to Nerissa.

“Life ain’t always easy,” she said quietly. “And sometimes it gives us surprises we aren’t quite ready for.” She reached out and took Nerissa’s hand. “You didn’t know you were breedin’, did ye?”

Nerissa shook her head, feeling the tears squeezing past her eyes despite her best efforts. Mira’s gentle compassion and empathy were about to open the floodgates on her emotions. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I wasn’t quite sure myself, but the bloom in your cheeks, the way you weren’t eating, and that bullcrap about land-sickness… I put it all together and made a wild stab in the dark. Didn’t know if I was right or not, but at least it got those two men of yours to quit killing each other by knocking them both over the head with it.”

Nerissa knuckled another tear.

Mira squeezed her hand. “Can I say something?”

Nerissa nodded.

“I think ye’re bein’ too hard on yer man.”

Nerissa choked back the sudden lump in her throat. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.”

“He didn’t tell ye because he was afraid he’d lose ye.”

“I’ve never seen my husband afraid of anything. Not even Lucien when he was about to kill him. The word ‘afraid’ is not part of his vocabulary, Mira.”

“It is when it comes to you. He loves you.”

She sniffed and with unladylike despair, wiped the back of her hand across her nose.

“We were talking about settling here,” Nerissa said plaintively. “There’s you and Brendan, and the connection we both have with Amy makes me feel that you’re already family. We talked about building a home. And now…now, I just feel sick at heart.”

“Still think ye’re being too hard on him.”

Nerissa sniffled again, and felt the tears coming again.

“That man loves you to the end of the earth,” Mira added. “I know a fair bit about fighting, and I can tell you right now that he was holding back when he and your brother were going at each other. Brendan told me all about your husband, how scrappy a lad he was, how tough and cunning he is. They grew up together in Connemara. Do ye think he didn’t have a reason for letting your brother beat up on him like a dusty rug? He could have killed him and didn’t, because he knew what that would’ve done to you.”

“He was no match for Lucien.”

Mira made a noise that was half-guffaw, half snort. “Well, family loyalty is all well and good, but you ought to open your eyes once in a while and try lookin’ at the truth that’s standing right in front of you. Anyhow, doesn’t matter, does it? You’re sitting in here crying with a baby brewin’ in yer belly, that good-looking man ye married is off buying provisions to sail out of here with Andrew, and
my
husband, who’s recovering from a fall that nearly killed him not three months back, is getting
Kestrel
ready to take your other brother down to New York to deliver him safely into the hands of the damned British.” She chewed at a hangnail. “Kind of a mess, don’t ye think?”

Nerissa raised her head. Guilt filled her heart. “Oh, Mira….”

“Don’t ‘oh Mira’ me. You’ve got some hurt feelings to fix, some soothing to do. Now stop feeling sorry for yerself, get off that pampered, well-bred butt of yours and go find and forgive your husband. And while you’re at it, might as well make peace with that high-minded brother of yers, too.”

Nerissa shook her head. “I can forgive Ruaidri,” she said, her mouth tightening, “but I cannot forgive Lucien.”

“Gonna just let him sail out of here and back home to England, then?”

The tears welled back up in Nerissa’s throat, filled her sinuses and burned like fire as she fought to keep them from spilling once more. She couldn’t trust herself to speak, instead just nodding jerkily and looking away—and missing Mira’s calculating stare.

“Have it your way, then,” she muttered, getting to her feet. “But I’m a-telling ye right now, you don’t fix this, ye might never again get the chance and it’s gonna eat at your gut worse than if ye’d swallowed a bucketful of seaworms.”

The other woman stood up, and with a meaningful glance over her shoulder as she went to the door, walked out.

Nerissa just sat there, looking miserably out the window.

Soon enough, Lucien and her brother would be gone from this little town and on their way home to England. How stricken Lucien had looked when she’d told him to get out of her life. It felt good at the time to deliver such a blow to her brother after all he’d done to ruin her life, but now…now, as the dust was settling around Mira’s words and her own confusion and heartache caught up with her, the idea of him sailing away and truly out of her life, brought her indescribable pain.

I can’t forgive him. I just can’t.

She was still sitting on the bed staring miserably at the floor when her bruised and battered husband came quietly in an hour later.

She looked up at him, saw the uncertainty in his eyes, and with a sob, stretched out her arms to him in forgiveness.

He didn’t stop to ask if she was certain she even wanted to give it.

They made love for a second time that morning. By the time the tide had turned late that afternoon, Lord Andrew was aboard
Tigershark
and Captain Ruaidri O’ Devir was on his way to Boston to complete the mission on which John Adams had sent him. In his wake was Brendan’s schooner
Kestrel
, bound for New York to bring the Duke of Blackheath back to the British.

And Nerissa, standing silently at the window and watching the two vessels grow small with distance, was all alone.

Chapter 32

John Adams was all smiles and gratitude upon being presented with Lord Andrew de Montforte and what he assumed would be the substance that would end this war in the Americans’ favor. He and his wife Abigail plied the young nobleman and their favorite captain with food and drink, caught Ruaidri up on what had been going on here at home, and invited him to stay the night. But the Irishman, thinking of his wife back in Newburyport, politely declined. Adams saw him to the door, still smiling—and leaving Ruaidri to wonder how long his high spirits would last once confronted with Andrew’s stubborn defiance. He was glad that his part in this undertaking was over. He didn’t envy Adams one bit.

As he and his brother-in-law parted company, Andrew left him with explicit instructions.

“I was nicknamed the Defiant One for a reason,” he said, holding out his hand in friendship. “I’m as stubborn as they come, but I’ve got nothing on either Lucien or my sister. You’re a good man, Ruaidri O’ Devir, and I’ve seen the best of you. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow, but when Lucien gets over being a pig-headed arse, he’ll realize you’re the best thing that ever happened to our sister.”

Ruaidri nodded. “And what about you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. Adams seems like a fine fellow, but he’ll get nothing out of me and neither will anyone else, including the Royal Navy. I’ve had a lot to think about this past month and a half, seen things I never want to see again. That explosive should never have been invented. Some day I’ll die, and the formula on how to make it will die with me. You have my word.”

“I wish you godspeed, Lord Andrew.”

“And I wish you luck in making my stubborn siblings see reason. Farewell, my new brother. Stay in touch….”

No animosity, no hard feelings, just a young man who understood that another man was only doing his duty and took nothing personal from it. Even so, Ruaidri sailed home with a heavy heart.

He’d only been gone for a day, and yet he found Nerissa much as he’d left her, morose, distant, and sad.

He knew about pride and the toll it took on a person. He knew about regrets and how hard it was to acknowledge them. And he knew about heartache when he saw it.

If ye don’t have family
, he thought,
ye don’t have anythin’.

He wondered if Brendan had reached New York. He’d carried a flag of truce, his ticket for sailing that singularly unique and justifiably famous schooner into New York without getting blasted to Kingdom Come. But having a duke on board was rather good insurance against such things, Ruaidri thought.

He rather wished
he
had a duke on board to guarantee him that same safety as, unable to get so much as a smile from his wife, the dullness in her red-rimmed eyes hurting him in places he hadn’t realized were capable of feeling pain, he pulled together his crew once more and set a course south.

Toward New York.

Where, he hoped, he’d have it out with Lucien de Montforte once and for all. Before he found some mighty English warship to bring him back to England. Before he boarded it and sailed away.

Before it was too late.

* * *

The shadows were long outside the inn, autumn’s dead leaves skating down the cobbled street outside on a wind off the mighty Hudson.

He could have dined with General Clinton tonight, been feted and fed, bowed and scraped to and toasts drunk to his health. It wasn’t every day that a famous and powerful duke all the way from England visited a place like New York, especially in the middle of a war. Lucien might otherwise have embraced such expected treatment, but he was in no mood for it tonight, and even less for company. Sycophants. Posturers and fools. People begging favors, people seeking audiences. This was only his second night in this colonial hell-hole, and his impatience with those around him had reached its end.

He wanted nothing more than anonymity.

And to be alone.

One of the benefits of being in a place where nobody knew you, of course, was that you could put on your hat, throw your greatcoat over your fine clothes and go find a rough-and-tumble tavern where it was all the more certain that nobody would know you, nobody would want something from you, and you could spend the evening drowning your sorrows in a pint of ale.

Or maybe two.

It was as he was lifting the second heavy tankard to his mouth that his senses all prickled with alert, and he paused and looked around him. People milled about, eating, laughing, drinking, playing backgammon, but Lucien de Montforte knew that he was not alone.

Someone slid into the chair across from him and he raised a surprised brow.

“O’ Devir,” he murmured, and took another sip of his ale. “Back for more, are you?”

“Aye, well, ye know me. Just a dumb Irishman. I’ll always come back for more.”

Lucien eyed him flatly. “What do you want?”

“Well now, what I want is to be back home with my wife, talkin’ about buildin’ a life together and preparin’ for a little one. Know what my pet name was for her, Your Grace? I called her Sunshine. Called her that because she was bright and warm. Because she was full of sunlight and cheer and she lit up everythin’ around her, includin’ me heart.” He raised his hand to summon the tavern wench, who was quick to set him up with a cold, foaming tankard of his own. “But she’s not full of sunlight and cheer any longer, and the reason for that is us. Or more specifically,
you
.”