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‘And I walk in here with this news.’ Hebe pressed her fingertips to her lips, which were trembling. ‘Oh Alex, I am so sorry! To have lost your father was tragedy enough, but your brother as well, and in such a way, when you must have had every hope of his recovery. I am so very, very sorry. I must go, I cannot stay here talking to you, you must have so much to do, so much to reflect upon…’
‘There is nothing I can do for my brother now,’ Alex said harshly. ‘At least I was with him at the end. We were never close—he was five years my senior—but we had time to talk, these past weeks after the accident. I am glad we had that. But my man of business is here, the lawyer is expected. There is nothing else I can do at the moment. And, as you have discovered, this baby changes priorities.’
‘You will do as I suggest, then? Perhaps there is a London agent you can recommend to me who will find me a house? I thought Suffolk perhaps, or Norfolk. I know no one there and we have no relatives at all in that part of the world. I do not know how much money I will need: I have not had the chance to think about it yet, and I am so out of touch with what things cost here.’
‘No, Hebe.’
‘No? You would prefer to deal with the agent yourself? Oh, yes, and I must find the direction of the bank where my trust fund is situated and make arrangements for that to be paid. There is so much to think about.’
‘I mean, no, Hebe, I will not agree to this insane plan.’
Hebe put down the cup of tea he had just handed her. The fragile bone china chattered in the saucer. ‘You will not help me, then?’ She had never dreamed he would reject her like this. How would she manage?
‘Very well.’ She got to her feet, amazed to find her voice was steady. She turned and took a step towards the door, then swung round to face him. ‘I was not asking you to love this child, my lord, just to provi
de a little for it. If you will not help me, then I will manage as best I can.’
The inimitable, handsome face stared into her own white one and the room began to spin.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Hebe!’ She blinked and found herself being lowered gently into the chair again. Alex picked up the cup and pressed it to her lips. ‘Try and drink a little. Hebe, listen to me, I am not going to abandon you and the baby, it will be all right. Just rest a little, I will call Anna.’
Hebe took a sip, then shook her head. ‘No, no, I do not need her. What do you mean? You said you would not agree to my plan.’
‘It is madness, Hebe. Did you really think I would abandon you like that, baby or no?’
‘But Lady Clarissa…’
‘Lady Clarissa Duncan is now Lady Westport.’
‘What?’ Hebe stared at his face, but there was absolutely nothing there to read other than the pain in his eyes. ‘But she wrote to you—I was there when you read the letter.’
‘Yes. I now find, from talking to my brother, that she never had any intention of taking my proposal seriously. I would never have heard another word after we parted, only she burned her fingers very badly when she thought she could ensnare the heir to a dukedom—never mind which one—and she appears to have written to accept me on the rebound.
‘A younger son of an earl, with no fortune and only his army career to support him was not, it appears, a very appealing prospect when she had time to think about it. As far as I can tell, she told no one that she had accepted me in whatever fit of pique it was, and a little while later, at about the time I was reading her letter in your garden, she snared herself her lord. Her letter informing me of this arrived here a few days after my return. Presumably she heard I was back and decided it might be kind to let me know I was no longer betrothed to her.’ He smiled wryly, with absolutely no humour. ‘It is amusing, is it not? If she had only waited, she would have found herself a countess.’
‘Alex, I do not know what to say.’ Hebe tried to contemplate the blows that were falling on Alex’s broad back and quailed at the thought. His brother and father dead; a great title and estate, suddenly his responsibility; the woman he loved revealed as a heartless, status-seeking flirt, and now she had arrived to inform him he was about to be the father of an illegitimate baby.
‘There is nothing to say. We can only be thankful that one complication is removed from this situation. I suggest that you continue to London, as soon as you feel up to it, and I will visit your aunt and uncle in perhaps a week and ask for your hand.’
‘My hand?’ Hebe knew she was staring stupidly, but his words made no sense.
‘In marriage. Hebe, you did not seriously think I would let you go off and bring up this child alone, did you?’
‘If you had been married…’
‘That, I admit, would have made it more difficult, but whatever the consequences, I would have acknowledged it, made sure you were all right and were not cut off from your family. Now there is no reason why you cannot marry me.’
After weeks of feeling queasy Hebe wondered if now she really was going to be ill. She took another sip of tea. ‘I cannot marry you, I told you…’
‘You told me you would not tolerate a loveless marriage. Yes, I heard that message clearly enough. But are you so fixed on that resolve that you would bastardise your child? Our child? You told me it changed everything. Are you telling me that you would beg money from me, deceive your family, spend your entire life living a lie, but you will not do the one thing that will ensure that child a future? If it is a boy, he will be the heir to an earldom. If it is a girl, she may marry where she will, have every comfort.’
Hebe watched the tall figure pacing up and down the room as though he suddenly had more energy than could be contained in the space. ‘I…if you put it like that… But…’ Marry Alex. She was going to marry Alex and have his child. She would have everything in the world she desired, except the thing she had wanted almost from the moment she had begun to know him: his love.
‘But,’ he echoed. ‘But. There is no need to worry, Hebe. I give you my word, I will not lay a finger on you. I will not touch even your hand without your permission. I will never put a foot over the threshold of your bedchamber.’
She had no trouble believing him. She had just heard the bitter words of a man who had discovered how shallow and fickle the woman he had loved was. He was not going to give any part of himself as hostage to another. She could imagine it would disgust him to be reminded of the appalling revelation she had just forced him to listen to. He was not going to forgive himself for what had happened with her, nor, she was certain, was he going to trust his heart to another woman again.
