Awakening His Duchess (43 page)

And but for his rebellious need to travel the world, they’d
still be here.

His mother slipped out to check on the duke and Yvette went
with her.

When the conversation digressed into plans to start a card
game, he stood and announced he was retiring.

“You can’t. Why, it is barely gone ten,” said Julie.

“You may be used to fashionable hours, but I am not. I will
see you in the morning.” He circled the room giving each of his sisters a hug.
He suspected he held them all just a smidge too long, but it had been a
ten-year absence. Why he had ever felt the need to leave in the first place, he
didn’t know.

He checked on the duke before retiring. His mother was
sitting with him while the old man lay in his bed looking frail as he slept.
God willing, they weren’t too late to save him now that they knew why he was
ailing.

“Lady Beaumont—I mean your wife, Lady Arrington—”

“Just call her Yvette,” interrupted Beau.

His mother frowned at him and he raised his eyebrows. So the
rebelliousness hadn’t entirely deserted him.

“I do not know about these uncivil democratic notions you
seem to have developed in your travels,” the duchess remarked stiffly.

“Oh come, Mother, I had them before I left. But that is
neither here nor there. How is the duke doing?”

“Your wife says she knows what is wrong with him and she
thinks some kind of almond will help.”

Beau’s chest tightened. “Almonds of the Andes. I’ve sent for
them with instructions to do whatever it takes to find them.”

She stood and moved closer to him. “You’ve changed.”

“Not so much,” he said.

“Is all well between you and Lady Arrington?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? “Give us time, Mother, I’ve
only been back a few days. We have a lot to sort out.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Goodnight, Mother,” he said firmly before she could
question more.

“You haven’t told us the whole story of what happened to
you.”

“In time,” he promised. What she didn’t know would fill
volumes. But how could he tell her that he’d brought this evil upon their
house?

He kissed her and hugged her then turned toward the door.
He’d failed to protect Yvette from a life with a vile, self-serving, amoral
man. That same man had systematically been murdering everyone between Etienne
and the dukedom. Instead of seeking his bed, his feet turned toward the stairs
to the nursery floor.

Gently he opened Etienne’s door. While his son was asleep
sprawled across his bed in little boy fashion, Yvette sat near him, her fingers
rubbing near a bruise on his wrist.

A lamp dimly burned on a bedside table.

“How is he?” whispered Beau.

Yvette rolled her shoulders without taking her eyes off her
son. “I am worried he will have nightmares.”

She was worried some other ill fate might befall their son.
He opened his mouth to reassure her, but closed it. The words wouldn’t ease her
troubled mind. And in truth he would not rest easy until Henri dangled at the
end of a rope. Even so he could not guarantee her a life free of future
tragedies.

Taking in the rigid way Yvette sat, he realized Etienne
likely wasn’t the only one who might have nightmares. Any one of them might.

Beau crossed the room and bent down to scoop up his son. “He
can sleep in our rooms tonight.”

“Beau,” she protested.

“I need to know you are both safe.”

As he stood, Etienne curled limply around him. The near loss
of him struck Beau squarely in the chest with the force of a hammer. For a
second he stood just feeling his son’s warmth. “I will never let anything like
that happen to you ever again.”

He pivoted and headed out the door.

 
*~*~*

Yvette followed Beau into their suite and watched him carry
Etienne into his room and tuck him into the big bed.

Beau bent over his son and stroked his hair. They were so
alike she couldn’t watch them together. It hurt.

If she was to watch over her son, it had to be from Beau’s
bedroom, but perhaps that had been his plan. Anger sizzled under her skin. He
seemed so little affected by the events of the day. He’d been so carefree with
his family, laughing, telling his expurgated tales of Saint-Domingue and the
wonder of fruits found in the tropics.

Although many times through dinner and afterwards while the
family gathered in the drawing room, she’d felt the weight of his gaze on her
she’d said little because she feared she might scream or howl instead of engage
in civilized discourse with anyone.

Still she’d hoped to avoid him for this evening. She wanted
the time and distance to settle back into herself. To withdraw from Beau and
hold herself separate.

Every wound he had suffered, every heartache he’d borne was
because of her. Because Henri wanted her enough to kill her father’s slaves and
impoverish him just to have her, probably even killed his first wife. And then
because Henri saw Etienne as a means to secure a brilliant future as the
stepfather to a duke.

She turned into her bedroom and reached to ring for her
maid.

Beau’s hand on hers stopped her. “I can help you dress for
bed.”

“Beau,” she protested.

“Our son is just a few feet away, I am not trying to seduce
you.” He turned from her. “I just don’t want to deal with anyone else tonight.”

He turned her back to him and began unfastening her dress.
His touch was business like without any unneeded brushes or caresses. Her skin
shimmered in expectation. The bodice loosened and sagged just like her hopes.
What was wrong with her? She didn’t want him making love to her. She didn’t
want to feel, didn’t want to want. She needed to just go back to the way she’d
been. Apart. Closed off.

“Do you want this off, too?” He tugged on her corset.

“I can do it,” she said.

“Fine.” He didn’t press her but turned on his heel and
retreated to his own room. Where Etienne slept.

She made quick work of shedding her gown, only at the last
minute retrieving the oilskin wrapped document from her deep skirt pocket. She
half considered tossing it on the flames of the fire. But Beau would not let
loose of Etienne, so she must stay too.

But she couldn’t open her heart again. She had to close it
off or she would end up mad. It hurt too bad when she thought Beau and Etienne
were dead. She stood staring at the flames of the fire, the memory of the
massacre alive and huge in her mind. The fires, the blood, the agonizing wrench
of realizing her babies were dead and she only had Etienne. The loss burned in
her like it had happened yesterday.

“You have not moved,” said Beau.

She turned and he stood in her arched doorway, a dressing
gown over his shirt and breeches. So he did not intend to sleep yet. She
dreaded what she had to say.

“What do you have?” he asked.

“The certificate.” Their marriage certificate. She’d only
peeked inside long enough to see what it was after a man handed it to her in
the inn while she waited for Beau to return from swearing out the warrant.
“Henri had it all along.”

Beau moved forward to take it out of her hand.

“We could just toss it on the fire,” she offered.

He looked at her, his eyes ridiculously blue, the dark
spokes standing out starkly. “Why would we do that?”

She shook her head. Then shrugged. “I cannot do this. I do
not think I can make you a good wife. You deserve someone who still has a heart
to give you.” He deserved a woman who hadn’t brought tragedy after tragedy into
his life.

“I only ever meant to protect you.”

Yet because of her he’d been nearly destroyed, his brothers
murdered. His father possibly lying on his deathbed.

She made a sound of disgust, and his face turned stony. He
turned and crossed into the sitting room.

She moved to gather the nightgown that had been laid out for
her on her bed and pulled it over her shift. She sat down on the edge of her
bed. She sat for a long time waiting for Beau to say something.

Finally she crossed into the room to where he sat. The
oilskin pouch was open and two certificates lay on the table in front of her.
One was from her marriage to Henri, and the other her marriage to Beau.

He sat in the chair rubbing his eyes.

She felt brittle, like old waterlogged wood that was
crumbling and rotten.

“This morning you were much like I remembered you, darting
around—”

“I’m not the girl you knew in Saint-Domingue.”

“You are and you aren’t. Just the same as I am not the
reckless boy you married.” He stood up.

Her heart fluttered. No, he was not a boy in any way. She
took a step back. She should have stayed in her room.

“Maybe I saw what you would become,” he said. “Either way,
you will make a fine duchess and matriarch one day.”

“No. I cannot. I take it back. I cannot bear the thought of
more children. I wish for doors or a separate suite. Or just an end. Send me
away as you said you would, but let Etienne spend part of the time with me.”

Beau’s face twisted. “You are tired—”

“No. I was foolish to think I could be what you need in a wife.
I do not have it in me. I do not love you. I cannot.”

His eyes narrowed. “What happened? We came back and it is
like you are a ghost.” He moved relentlessly forward. “You are the one person I
wanted to comfort and be comforted by, but you seem to have vanished.”

“Do not,” she said hopelessly.

“Is that how you survived living with that man? Cut yourself
off from any feeling?”

“Yes.” She’d lived in memories of Beau and fantasies of what
her life would have been if he lived. But each time she thought she lost him,
it was as if she’d been ripped open and tossed in salt water so the sharks
could feast on her as she slowly died.

Today had been the same. She couldn’t bear loving him and
the agony of feeling he was lost to her again.

“You think it is better to cut yourself off from life?”

“It is better than going through the pain of losing—” She
couldn’t say
him
, because it would
fuel his belief that there could be a real marriage between them. “Losing a
loved one again. When I thought...” She shook her head and pointedly looked
toward his bed and Etienne.

The corner of Beau’s mouth lifted in a self-depreciating
smile. “This is what the bokor was to do to me. Steal my soul, make me nothing
more than a mindless imbecile, good for only simple labor, but it seems that
was more your fate than mine.”

She stared at him and held up her hand. “It hurts too much.
I cannot do this. I cannot love you.”

“You can.” His eyes were red-rimmed, and she felt as though
she were cleaving in two. “You just choose not to.”

“It is not that simple.” It wasn’t a choice so much as
survival.

“It is a choice. I could have become what they tried to make
me. I could have given up and just started planting one foot in front of the
other, working the cane, thinking about no more than how to get through the
next minute. But I was not going to let the bokor win. I wasn’t going to let
you triumph. I let my hatred fuel a will to live. But I kept living.”

“You are stronger than I am.” She wanted to run and run
until her sides ached and her chest heaved with each breath. Perhaps run until
her legs gave out. Run like she had on the night of the massacre. But there was
nowhere to run. Nothing left to run to. Safety was here, but it required she
bare her soul. “I have been a cancer in your life. Nothing good has ever come
of us.”

He huffed and gestured toward his room where Etienne was
sleeping.

Somehow the reminder that they had produced Etienne only
sliced her raw. But she continued on as if he hadn’t gestured. This had to stop
before Etienne was lost to her. “I do not know why, but I am punished for
loving. And you are punished for loving me. We should throw the certificate on
the fire and let this marriage go up with the fires of revolution.”

“We can’t do that, Yvette. And that isn’t what I want.”

She turned. “I am better when I do not feel, when I do not
trust. When I just exist and do not care, then my heart cannot be ripped out of
me.”

“Then you would take away the best part of me, too.”

The words ripped through her like a machete slicing her
open. Her knees buckled.

Beau caught her. His embrace cut through the layers she’d
tried to wrap around herself to keep from feeling, but while his words cut, his
hold soothed her like the warm lap of a wave over her. He still believed she
could be whole. He still saw through to her soul. Understood her desire to cut
herself off from pain, but challenged it.

“I love you, Yvette. Even when I hated you for what I
thought you’d done to me, a day never went by that I did not think of you.”

“But—”

“Listen to me.” He gave her a little shake. “I tried to
exorcise you from my thoughts, but I still wanted you. It is not too late for
us.”

“What do you want of me?” She couldn’t live every day
dreading the moment his lungs gave out on him. Dreading the next loss.
Terrified any babies they might have could be snatched away at any time.
Knowing his father might yet die because of her.

“Be my wife in every way, sugar, and I will do everything I
can to make you happy. But as much as I would wish to make it so, I cannot
guarantee there will never be any heartaches in our future. But we will have
times of joy, and if we live separate lives there will be little joy.”

“Your brothers are dead because of me.”

“Because of Henri.” He shook his head. “Not you. Don’t let
him rob us of whatever happiness we might find again. Don’t let him win.”

She turned her face up to his and saw the weariness etched
across his brow, the uncertainty in his eyes and the flat set of his mouth.

Dear God, had Henri taken everything that was good about her
heart and incinerated it? He had nearly managed to destroy her love for Beau
even if Henri never had her love and devotion in the way he wanted. And she’d
allowed it, wanted the numbness of not caring. Not risking. Not loving.