The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

“No, I shouldn’t like it either. Now you know that you must be calm and placid as a cow, and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

He reached her bedchamber, frowned a maid out of the room in a near dead run, and laid her on her bed.

She took sips of the water he handed her. She groaned, grabbing her stomach.

He left the room and she heard him shout, “Maggie, get her some biscuits. Doubtless you packed dozens. Go, quickly!”

Not three minutes later, she was chewing slowly on a biscuit flavored with cinnamon. She sighed, finally relaxing.

“You don’t want me here. Why are you being perverse? Is the vicar due to call on you? Do you fear he will see your wife leaving you?”

He was silent. He turned away from her and began his familiar pacing, back and forth at an angle between the bed and the winged chair, long strides in his black boots.

He was such a splendid-looking creature. She liked him in those tight buckskin breeches. She remembered how he’d looked in his uniform and sighed again. “I’m willing to leave, Marcus. As you know, I’m very rich. And you also know, even without the money my father left me, I can still manage. I obviously didn’t get pregnant on purpose, that, I suppose, is impossible. But I am with child and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Suddenly she sucked in her breath and whispered, “No, surely not. You don’t want me to do that.”

“Surely not what? What don’t I want you to do?”

“I have heard of women who try to rid themselves of their babies and many succeed. They stick things inside themselves. Sometimes they die too.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Duchess, just shut up. Yes, I can certainly see you tripping into some back alley in York asking for an old besom to rid you of the child. Or better yet, why don’t I drag you by your hair into a back alley? Just cease your asinine talk. You may be quiet or you may turn red raging at me. Just don’t be a fool.” He began pacing again, more quickly now, his steps longer, his heels clicking on the wooden floor. He was indeed very nice to look at, the sod.

“What do you want me to do, Marcus?”

Then he turned and he was smiling. “It seems that now I won’t have to withdraw from you. The damage is done, so to speak.”

She could only stare at him. “You said Celeste would be here in four days.”

“I could have lied. I’m a Wyndham and it is a possibility that I didn’t write to her instructing her to come. You possibly know I was perhaps lying, don’t pretend otherwise. Since your bouts of illness come and go with neither rhyme nor reason, then I’d best enjoy you when a propitious moment is offered. Like now.”

She didn’t move for the longest time, nor did she speak. Then, very slowly, she rose from the bed, walked to the chamber pot, and retched.

“Well, hell,” he said, kicked over a stool, and went to hold his wife until she sagged back against him.

“You know,” he said, drawling out his words as he lightly stroked her hair from her face, “I just might have Celeste come after all. You are in no shape to offer me much of anything, fight or passion. What do you think, Duchess?”

“You just try it,” she said.

He stared at her a long moment. She could see him thinking, sorting through ideas, then he said, “I think I’m beginning to see things more clearly. I don’t think you had any intention of leaving Chase Park or me, did you?”

“Did you not see the valises? Wasn’t Maggie all decked as fine as a nine pence? Was the carriage not there waiting?”

“Did you?”

Actually he was perfectly right. She was only pretending to leave, the valises had been empty, and Maggie, bless her actress’s heart, had doubtless enjoyed herself immensely. She’d prayed he would come to grips with the existence of the child, prayed that if he thought she was leaving him, he would realize he wanted her, that he wanted both her and their child. Now she had no idea at all if she’d gotten what she’d prayed for.

She remained silent. She wouldn’t give him that kind of ammunition. Her chin went into the air.

“You now offer me another challenge,” he said, and his blue eyes glittered. “You like games, madam? Now that I know what you’re about, you’ll soon realize you haven’t got a chance. You will be humiliated. You’re a mere babe at this. You have no clue of proper strategy, no instinct for just what to do at any exact moment. Yes, a challenge from you—when you’re not puking on the rosebushes—just might please me.”

“I just might leave you tonight, at eight o’clock.”

He laughed.

“I don’t like it,” Marcus said to Badger and Spears. “She’s ill all the time. She’s pale and she’s thin as a damned stick. She’s too exhausted to even get angry, and the good Lord knows I bait her enough when she appears well, goad her until if I were her I’d shoot me or stab me with a dinner knife, but she doesn’t even take a nibble.”

“That is worrisome indeed, for you are renowned for your bait, my lord,” Spears said.

“I don’t like it either,” Badger said. “You are also renowned for your goads.”