Page 52 of Along Came a Rogue

She smiled sadly. “My father had just inherited a duchy. How would it have looked to society if his daughter returned as a failed wife?”

The pain in her voice was heart-wrenching, and he couldn’t help but tighten his arms around her. Nor could he argue with her, knowing her parents as well as he did. Firsthand experience had taught him how much position and influence meant to them.

“You could have told Thomas,” he said quietly, tucking a silky strand of hair behind her ear. “Your brother would always help you, you know that.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. At first, I didn’t want him to know. I was still hoping that Andrew would come back, that we might yet be able to make a loving home. So I pretended everything was fine.” She paused and drew a deep breath. “Thomas rode all the way to Yorkshire when he left the army, did you know that? Just to see me.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t known. Thomas had never mentioned it. Not once.

“I think he suspected…But I was too proud to admit I’d made such a terrible mistake. So I lied and said that Andrew was only away for a few days. I told Thomas to stop worrying about me, that I was married now and that it was my husband’s responsibility to take care of me. Not his. And that he needed to leave me alone.” Her voice ached with desolation as she admitted tearfully, “He rode away, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“You will—tomorrow,” he reassured her.

“But I sent him away…” A look of grief marred her beautiful face so wretchedly that his breath ripped from his lungs. “How can he ever forgive me for that?”

He pulled her closer, briefly closing his eyes at the pain. “He loves you, Emily. He’ll forgive everything.”

She nodded silently, but he wasn’t certain she believed him.

He traced his fingertips across her bare back beneath the quilt as another question pricked at his gut. “But you’re carrying Crenshaw’s child.” If there was one thing about which he was certain, it was that Emily would never cuckold her husband, no matter how lonely she was. “He must have come back to you,” he said with great tenderness, choosing his words carefully, “and into your bed.”

Her hand covered her belly protectively. She turned away but not before he saw her face darken with shame. “Because I tricked him,” she confessed in a whisper.

Grey kept his expression stoic, not allowing himself to reveal any expression of pity for her. Quietly and tenderly, without a trace of judgment, he asked, “How?”

She took several rapid breaths, as if forcing the air into her lungs could fend off the pain of the memory. “I wanted a family so much that I was willing to do whatever I had to. I convinced Andrew that my father would increase my dowry if we had children. It was the only way I could get him to return. I’d tracked my courses so I knew what days were best for getting with a child, and…” Her voice trailed off guiltily. “And two months later, I was increasing, and my husband was dead.”

Grey knew the rest, how she hid the pregnancy from everyone and resolved to run away. If he had arrived just one week later, she would have already disappeared, most likely hiding herself so well that no one would have been able to find her. Not even him. To think how close he came to never having this chance to be with her…He lowered his head and scattered gentle kisses across her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids—she trembled, and the vulnerability he felt in her sliced into his heart.

“Emily.” He nuzzled her neck, willing her to open her eyes and look at him so he could reassure them both that she would heal and be stronger than before. “You did nothing wrong in your marriage or in creating this baby.” He took her chin and tipped up her face. “Look at me.”

Her eyes opened slowly, the blue depths watery in the shadows.

Even in the short time they’d spent together, he’d come to know this woman better than any other person in his life. He knew what made her happy, what made her laugh and cry, just as he knew exactly what she needed to hear at that moment to drive away her fears. “This baby is a precious gift, the one good thing that came out of your marriage. You deserve to have this child and its love. And you are going to be a wonderful mother.”

At his comforting words, the pain and fear in her eyes softened. She self-consciously lowered her gaze to his chest, but not before he glimpsed a brightness in her face. A flicker of hope. The first such look he’d seen in her since he arrived at Snowden Hall.

A soft smile teased at her lips. “I know it’s silly—the baby’s still only a little bump, after all,” she confided, “but I keep thinking of all the time we’re going to spend together, all the songs and games I’m going to teach him, all the stories I’ll tell him.”

“Him?” Grey grinned at that.

She nodded with resolve. “He’s going to be a boy, I know it. And I’m going to teach him to sail little boats on ponds, to draw and paint pictures, to conjugate his Latin verbs—”

Grey laughed and tightened his arms around her. Only Emily could see Latin lessons as a precious childhood memory.

Faint worry darkened her face. “Although now that I’m headed to London and he’ll be born a marquess, that might all have to change.”

“It won’t,” he assured her, touching his lips to hers. “Except that now you’ll have your brother to help you.”

She nodded at that, but her worry didn’t fade even as she said with resolve, “Then I’ll buy him a pony, and Thomas can teach him to ride and shoot better than any little boy in Mayfair.” Her blue eyes rose to meet his, an affection in their depths that made him shiver. “And he’ll have you to protect him.”

“And his mother,” he murmured. His heart swelled with emotion for her and her unborn baby. Never…never had he cared this much about any woman before. Yet instead of terrifying him, the thought made him ache with longing. For the first time, he wished his life could have been different. For her.

She looked up at him through lowered lashes, a seductively innocent look that stole his breath away. “Make love to me, Nathaniel.”

Her words were spoken hesitantly against the darkness, as if she was afraid he might refuse her. But he would never refuse her anything, and certainly not this.

Slipping his arms around her, he rolled onto his back and brought her up on top of him, her legs straddling his waist. He curled his hand behind her neck and tugged her down onto his chest to kiss her.