Awakening His Duchess (30 page)

He checked up and wiped his good hand on his trousers just
to be certain he didn’t lose his grip on the ax.

Nothing she’d done in the last few hours fit with the
heartless cold image he had of her. Nothing since he’d arrived, hell, nothing
since she’d arrived here fit with her being a grasping she-devil. She’d saved
him, she was working to save the boy inside, and she certainly gave no
indication that she craved the trappings of wealth. In fact she was more of an
angel.

And he’d treated her like she was lower than a viper. Hell,
how badly had he mucked up their marriage? Did she still care or had he
eradicated that with his callous rejections of her? Could he get her back?

He took another swing and the wood rewarded him with a
satisfying crack.

When he first went after her in Saint-Domingue, she been
resistant. He’d managed to woo her anyway. He’d have to do it again, charm her,
seduce her and convince her that he was worth loving. He barked a half-laugh.
He wasn’t even certain that was true anymore.

Mazi gave him a skeptical look and then resumed swinging his
ax at the stringy, resistant wood.

He’d have to tell her that his opinion upon returning home
was wrong. If she was anything like the girl he remembered, telling her he’d
changed his mind wouldn’t be enough and probably wouldn’t be well received.
He’d have to show her he intended to take care of her. And he’d have to
convince her to be his wife in every way once more. He’d have to hope that
she’d forgive him. And eventually would want him once again.

 
*~*~*

Yvette moved to the doorway of the cottage. She needed fresh
air, although she couldn’t desert Thomas and his family. The boy hadn’t
regained consciousness, which might be a blessing. She suspected his pelvis was
broken as well as his thigh. She’d done what she could to align everything and
then strapped him tightly.

Another thwack sounded. The hacking had been going on for
hours as she did what she could for Thomas and tried to hide her pessimism from
his family. She took a few steps away from the oppressive gloom inside the
cottage.

Beau raised the ax and brought it down with sure force. She
froze mid-step. Beau was chopping the tree? She would have expected he’d assign
the task to crofters or servants and go back to the castle. Instead he and Mazi
where the only men working. The soft boy she’d married in Saint-Domingue had
never seemed like a man who would engage in physical labor when he could have
others do it.

His jacket had been tossed aside and the linen clung to his
back molding his muscles as he raised the ax again. Warmth rippled down her
body.

In the periphery of her vision she saw Mazi nod toward her.
Beau lowered the ax and turned. Their eyes met across the space of a dozen
yards. She was unable to break away.

He leaned his ax against the trunk and strode toward her,
his gait only a little uneven. He’d changed into a hard, physically capable
man. A man who could cow anyone with his strength and power, yet his honed
physique only sharpened a strange longing in her. His blue eyes bore into hers
as he purposely closed the distance between them. A frisson slid down her spine
and she wanted to flee back inside where she knew how to react. As if her feet
were chained, she couldn’t move.

His eyebrows drew together the closer he got. He reached for
her and she wasn’t at all certain what he would do with her. But her heart beat
out a mad cadence that suggested she wanted him to demand they return to the
castle so he could have his way with her. A scenario that was as preposterous
as it was unlikely.

“Yvette.” Her name on Beau’s lips was like a caress.

His hand closed around her upper arm and sensation jolted
her out of her near stupor. She didn’t want what she’d just imagined, she was
merely tired and worried and wanting to escape—not into Beau’s arms. That was
the last thing she wanted. Although her heart was hammering and the idea of
stepping forward and resting her cheek against his broad chest beckoned with
the power of the serpent in Eden with just as disastrous a likely outcome.

Yvette stumbled across the doorsill as Beau pulled her
outside.

“I should go back inside. They need me,” she said. Although
all she’d been able to do for a long while was sit by Thomas’ bed.

“How is the boy?” Beau asked.

Confusion swirled in her making her sag. Beau had likely
only been concerned about Thomas as he approached her. She opened her mouth to
relay the half-truths that didn’t destroy hope. But they wouldn’t come out.
Instead she glanced over her shoulder at the open doorway.

Beau tugged her several feet away in the gloom of the
descending twilight.

“That bad?” he murmured.

He dropped his hold and the warmth disappeared as if swept
away by a hurricane gale.

“He has injuries to his insides that I cannot cure.” She
looked at the ground as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I do not think he
will last much longer.”

“Can you do anything more to help him?” asked Beau.

“I have done all I know to do.”

Beau tucked a stray curl back into her hair beside her
temple and she felt herself unraveling. After the way he expelled her from his
room the other night he had no right to treat her tenderly, no right to make
her yearn for his touch, no right to work for hours and make her think he was a
better man than any other man she’d ever known.

“We’ll go back to the castle. You need—”

“No. I shall stay,” she said.

“You are tired. I’m taking you home.” His tone turned
distant and formal, not to be brooked. His eyes narrowed as he reached for her.

“Non!”
She wrenched back. She was not one of the
servants or tenant farmers beholden to him. She wouldn’t leave and let the
Fowlers think she had deserted their son in his last hours.

He had the strength to force her to do what he wanted, yet
she was more afraid that she would go with him and turn to him for comfort and
he would take that as an invitation to do more. Another night like the one of
her nightmare would tear her into tiny pieces. He took a menacing step toward
her. “Yvette, your dress is ripped. You need to—”

Would he be just like his father, always more concerned
about what her appearance or her doctoring of the less fortunate said about the
family’s status? “I shall stay until the end. You may go.”

 
“I cannot leave you
here alone.”

She stared at him, thinking there must be some trick in his
sounding reasonable, caring even. “I have stayed many a time with a sick
tenant.”

 
“It is different now
that you are the wife of a future duke and not the widow of a younger son.”

So did he fear his standing among the estate workers would
suffer if he left his wife at a cottage?

“I did not ask for this change,” she blurted.

He lifted his chin and looked past her into the murky dusk.
His mouth tightened. “I will not assume you would have preferred I’d have died
in Saint-Domingue.”

“
Non
. You misunderstand.” Helplessness surged through
her. He always looked at her actions and words in the worst possible light,
just as she had looked at his the same way. However there had been little room
for misinterpretation when he wouldn’t even allow her to touch him and told her
to get out of his room. “You do not listen to what I say. I did not know you
were the son of duke when I sought your family’s help.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Would it have mattered?”

“No. I was desperate to provide for Etienne.” She shrugged.
“But I do not like that everything I do must be examined for what image it
reflects back on the almighty duke.”

“Nor do I, but this isn’t about our image. You look pale and
drained and I want to take you back so you can eat and change into clean
clothes and get a good night’s sleep. I promise I will bring you back at first
light.”

Her insides knotted. Why would he offer her tenderness now
when his disdain of her had colored their every moment up until now? “I do not
know who you are. You have been kind to everyone but me. Now you wish to be
kind to me too?”

He sighed. “Can we just start over, Yvette?”

Her thoughts were in a swirl. To deny him a fresh start
seemed cruel, but he had been cruel, crass, nothing like the gentleman she’d
seen today. He was a man willing to work alongside common men. He’d commanded,
but also lent his back to the work. She couldn’t even begin to sort it all out
when there was a dying child. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough.” His expression flattened. “I shall try to
listen. If you can do nothing more, why do you want to stay?”

“If there is much pain, I might be able to ease it. I worry
for his mother in her condition.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to release
the bottled tension. “He has been unconscious since we took him inside. His
body is young and strong or he would already be gone.”

“Fine, then. We will stay two more hours. I’ll have Mazi
tell them not to expect us soon. If there is no further change in Thomas’
condition, you shall come home with me.” His tone was firm.

 
*~*~*

Together they went to check on Etienne in his bed and stood
silently together watching him sleep. Beau slid an arm around Yvette’s
shoulders and tensed waiting for her to step away or push his arm off. She’d
been cold toward him, and it was nothing less than he deserved.

Since that night they’d had relations, she hadn’t come to
his room again, and she always closed her bed curtains. Not that he meant
anything more than comfort tonight. He had worked hard and could likely sleep
like a stone once he put his head to his pillow.

But she moved woodenly with a lethargy and obedience that
alarmed him. Not that he expected her to be the same buoyant, mercurial girl that
he married. She wasn’t that. Her moods could still change quickly, but other
than her anger with him, her swings seemed a little more thoughtful, her
reactions tempered. It was if her vibrancy had left and she was naught but a
shell.

He feared the strain of waiting for a child to die was too
much for her, too much a reminder of her own losses. But Thomas was still
breathing steadily when they finally left, and he only hoped she would allow
him to see to her wellbeing now that they were home.

“The bath and food I ordered should be in the room by now,”
Beau whispered in her ear. “If you would like to bathe, I can remain in the
library until you are done. You can have your maid summon me.”

She shook her head. He tilted forward to see her expression.
Instead he caught the tracks of tears on her cheeks. He felt as if his lungs
had seized. They hadn’t, but the tightness in his chest was unbearable.

“Yvette,” he whispered and curled her into his embrace.

She stiffened then pushed away. Her head down, she swiped
roughly at her cheeks. “It is late.”

She strode to the door and let herself out but then
hesitated, the door held open. It was a tiny thing, but he hoped a peace
offering. Or perhaps only because they had just one candle between them.

He crossed Etienne’s darkened room. He snicked the door
softly shut behind them. The corridor was empty. The household had long gone to
bed except for their personal servants and the cook he’d instructed Digby to
wake. He wanted to make use of the chance to talk to her because once they
entered the suite their attendants would prohibit privacy and she would likely
pull her bed curtains, putting up a barrier he didn’t dare breach.

He offered the thought that had been swirling in his head
all day. “I kept thinking it could have been Etienne pinned beneath the tree.”

She jerked her gaze back to him, her dark eyes fathomless
but now dry. “As did I.”

He was relieved to see she had her composure back. Like him
she had probably needed to see their son safe and tucked in his bed. Beau held
out his arm to see if she would take it, but she seemed fixated on his face.

“I would not be able to bear it if anything happened to him.
But it is so unfair that that tree fell on an innocent boy.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what are you sorry?” She stared up at him, searching
his face.

“I saw that tree was half dead. I should have had it cut
down. I should have known my father with his condition would not be seeing to
maintaining the estate.”

Her face shuttered. She turned toward the stairs, ignoring
his arm. “You have been back only a week. Even if you had summoned the
woodcutters, they might not have come yet.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. This was a ducal estate. He was
the heir. Did she not understand the power of their position? That he and Mazi
had new clothes and footwear so quickly was evidence of ducal influence.
“Likely they would have.”

“You have had much to occupy you.” Her voice was a low
monotone. She turned her gaze away, and her face was in shadows.

It was no excuse. With his brothers’ deaths, the estate was
his responsibility, not only in the future but now too. He needed to shoulder
what his father could not. He would tell his father he was going to start
making rounds, looking for things that needed to be repaired or replaced. Now
that he’d started he might as well continue.

Yvette was disappointed in him, and he doubted that it was
because he took responsibility for not cutting down the elm. “I was wrong about
you.”

She didn’t acknowledge his words. She might as well have
taken his olive branch and poked him in the eye with it. He’d been a bastard to
her when he first arrived, but
everything
he’d seen since then
contradicted the image he had of the woman he believed she was.

Still butterflies danced in his stomach. Trusting her when
he’d believed for nine years that she betrayed him in a horrendous way was
hard, but they didn’t have a shot if he didn’t try. Besides, he’d faced far
worse things than baring his soul to his wife. He sucked in a deep breath.