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“In truth, I had no notion how to broach the topic, Edmond. And I only confirmed
yesterday I am with child, and I am not at risk!”
“You will not give birth in this house.”
She flinched. Her gaze captured his, and within his eyes, she saw the absolute truth. He would not yield. The passionate lover she had fallen in love with melted away, as if he had never been, and her cold duke once more stood in his place. “So it is banishment then?” she asked, her lips trembling. She forcefully flattened them, refusing to cry.
“I do not care where you go for your confinement. I have estates all over England and Scotland. Visit any one of them.”
She gave him a fulminating glare. “You are being cruel and unreasonable. I will need my family with me…I will need you.” There…she was laying her heart bare though he had the power to crush it.
“I will not watch you die!” he snarled. “Nor will I subject Rosa and Sarah to the heartache of losing you.”
Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking. “How arrogant you are. You are powerful and beyond wealthy, Edmond, but it is not you who determines who lives and who dies. Maryann’s death was not your fault, nor was it hers. It was simply death…inevitability, in this one a very tragic passing. I am with child—your child, and you would think to banish me to some forsaken place without the girls?”
He advanced almost menacingly, and she forced herself to hold her grounds. “If I had not climbed on top of Maryann and rutted until she bred, she would be here today,” he said with shocking crudity. “It was my desire for an heir…a thing that seems so inconsequential now, that pushed her to accommodate me every time, even knowing the danger to her life!”
How did he live with such guilt? Adel hugged herself and bit back a sob. “It was not your doing, Edmond. Even though the doctors had told Maryann not to have any more children…it was still her choice not to inform you, and I know why she did it. Not because she was being foolish or stubborn, but because she had hoped for a son and loved you. She wanted to grant your desire, and she hoped all might be well.”
A cold sneer curved his lips. “And is it that similar hope you possess, Adeline? You, who is slimmer, more petite than Maryann and the hundreds of women that die annually in childbirth. Do you hope you will not perish? Do you hope that the hunger I have for you has not consigned you to an early grave? Is that it, Adeline? Simply damnable hope?” His voice was icy with lethal scorn.
She jerked, not at his vulgarity, but the torment that darkened his eyes to ash. “I am truly sorry, Edmond,” she said her voice breaking. “I cannot imagine the pain and guilt you have lived with, but I cannot be caged because of your fear that I would have a similar fate.”
His gaze dipped to her stomach and lingered there for an inordinate amount of time. “I thought that night with you was a dream…a wonderful, terrifying dream.”
The soft words tripped her heart.
“I pray with everything in me, when you birth our babe you are not harmed, that he or she is not harmed. I can live with no other outcome.”
Her throat tightened. “I will be well, I promise you.”
His expression didn’t flicker. “As you said, Adeline, you are not responsible for the hands of fate, nor I. You cannot know if you will live or die. I cannot know, and that is why I had no wish to tempt fate’s capricious hand. But this is my fault and I will not hold you to blame. I had known relaxing with you, smiling and enjoying life would lead to this road. If I had been firm in my resolve to never allow such intimacies, we would not be standing here now, debating the possibility of you living or dying when you are brought to bed with our child.”
The distance in his voice had alarm shivering through her. This was going beyond anger or fear. “Edmond, I—”
“No,” he said, with such chilling softness that she faltered.
“I will never make such a mistake again.”
Suddenly she understood what he was about to do.
Perpetual estrangement.
Her eyes smarted with tears. “Stop this,” she cried fiercely. “Your unreasonable fear would see us divided forever.”
His gray eyes appeared like cold flint. “I am stopping, Duchess.”
She absorbed the finality in his tone, his demeanor. If she had thought him cold and aloof before, then the man before her now was a positive glacier…and unknown. All she had been hoping for would now be forever from their reach. Even if she delivered their child safely, he would never return to her arms, never ride with her across the fields, never kiss her, never relax and trust in the attachment strengthening between them with each passing day. His wall of reserve was now absolute, and she would never be able to shatter it.
The loss which scythed through her heart almost brought her to her knees. It took unbearable strength to remain standing and face him. “I will take my confinement at Rosette Park.”
“Is that so, Duchess?” he asked chillingly.
“Yes, I will have the consolation of Lady Harriet and our girls’ presence.”
“Send word when the child is born…if you are alive.”
She gasped, and he stormed away.
