Lord Grenville's Choice (21 page)

“You have been in love with her these five years . . .”

“We have both been wrong about that. I have been an idiot, it is true. But, Felicity, it is you I have been in love with. I do not know when it happened. For some lunatic reason I do not understand, I fought it. I held myself back from you.” His eyes were earnest and pleading. “But you have given me a life I never would have had without you. A wonderful son. And the prospect of another child to come. You have been incredibly generous to me, despite my pig-headedness.”

Felicity could not fathom what she was hearing. It was what she had always wanted. But her emotions were buried away.

“You love Elizabeth.”

“I am asking your forgiveness, Felicity.” Throwing down his whip, he grasped her above her elbows. “I had an infatuation with Elizabeth. I did not even know her, it turns out. If there is any way you can still love me after the shabby way I have treated you, I pray that you will.”

She bowed her head, focusing on the grass growing between the stone foundations. “How can I believe you have not had an affair with her?”

“My feelings were never intense enough for that, Felicity. You were there in my life and you filled every part of it even though I fought to keep you out.”

She had sensed this her whole marriage and had blamed it on Elizabeth. “Why did you do that if it was not because of Elizabeth?”

He let go of her arms and began pacing in a circle. “I am dreadfully ashamed of my smallness of mind. In the beginning, I felt that I had no choice in the matter of marrying you. You moved into my life, overwhelming me with your vitality. And I was angry at myself for the enormous attraction I felt for you. I had never felt such for Elizabeth, and I was idiot enough to still believe myself in love with her.”

His words surprised her. She sat on a weathered stone, biting her bottom lip.

He laughed without mirth. “I wish you could have seen me in those early days, sitting at my club, trying to keep myself away from you, trying to overcome my feelings for you. Eventually, as you know, I could not stay away.”

Felicity tried fiercely to hang on to her doubts. “I do not like Elizabeth at all, Alex. I do not understand how you could have loved her for so long. And what about that sapphire ring she showed me?”

“I gave her that in the heady days before she was engaged to Beaton. I thought my love was eternal then, but compared to what I feel for you, it was nothing but puppy love. My resentment at having to marry you was the only thing that kept it alive. I felt that I had not been given a choice. Meanwhile, my heart of hearts was choosing you over and over again.”

Extending his hand, he drew her to her feet and looked her directly in the eye. “I do not know when my love began, but I know that it has been there, without my knowing it, for a long time. I have taken you horribly for granted. Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

“I do not know, Alex,” she said. “I am a bit overwhelmed by all of this. I have been so sure all of these years that you loved another.”

“May I kiss you?” he asked.

Suddenly afraid, she put her fingertips over her mouth. “Not yet, Alex. Not yet.”

“What are you afraid of, darling?”

“You will have to give me some time to take this in. I do not know how I can believe what you say after all these years. I need some time alone. To think.”

He was quiet and resumed his pacing. “I think rationality is my enemy in this situation. Tell me, did you love me in the past?”

Felicity nodded, afraid to own it in words.

“Can you love me again?”

“I have spent the last two weeks in hurt and anger, Alex. I have done everything I could to wrench that love out of me.”

“I am willing to spend the rest of my life proving my love. Starting now. Even though I have ridden six days with no thought other than to be with you again, I will leave you to your thoughts, hoping that you will come back to me with a forgiving heart.”

“Thank you, Alex.”

As she listened to her husband walk away, Felicity felt as though she had been blinded by too much light. With difficulty, she began trying to reorder her universe. Her life had been shattered. She knew it was going to take more than words to put it back together. She had to convince herself to open her heart again.

Alex had never kept Elizabeth as a mistress. The woman had apparently lied. Who do I believe? An obviously nasty woman, or Alex?

What reason would Alex have to lie? If he wanted Elizabeth, he could have had her. Felicity had removed herself from his life. But he had come here to Wales. To her. She opened her heart enough to grasp the idea that the affair she had tortured herself over had never taken place. It was like removing a thorn. The irritant was gone, but there was still some soreness there. But that soreness was not Alex’s doing. It was Elizabeth’s.

He asks me to forgive him for holding Elizabeth between us for five years. For choosing not to forget her. Now he says he has chosen me. Somewhere in all those words, did he not say he loves me? That he has unknowingly loved me for a long time?

Somehow, he found me here after driving six unrelenting days. Was that not the act of a man in love?

Opening her heart a bit further, she remembered his eyes when he spoke—so urgent and ardent. His face, so tired.

Clasping her hands together, she realized that they were cold. Dusk had fallen. She had a long walk ahead of her.

Why can I not believe that Alex actually loves me after all this time?

{ 30 }

W
hen Alex reached Tywyn house, Jack had returned from the beach.

“Papa! You came! Mama did not think you would. I am so glad you are here!”

As he had dreamed of doing for the last two weeks, Alex swept his son up onto his shoulder and ran outdoors with him, twirling him around and ultimately setting him on a sturdy tree limb so they were face to face. “Of course I came! Have you missed me?”

“Yes! Dr. Caldwell is very kind, but he is not my papa,” Jack said in all seriousness. It had given Alex an unpleasant jolt to see the physician. Was he the reason Felicity was reluctant to be reconciled?

“No,” said Alex, tweaking his son’s ear. “I will always be your papa.”

“Can you take me swimming in the ocean tomorrow?”

“That sounds a good idea. But it will be cold. Will you mind that?”

“Not if you are with me!”

Alex ruffled Jack’s hair as love for the boy suffused him. As little as a week ago, he had worried that he might not see him until he was grown. “Have you been playing kings and soldiers at the fort?”

His son regaled him with the history of Castell Bere he had learned from his mother and the imaginary battles he had staged there. Alex wished mightily that Jack was not too old for a cuddle.

After the recital was concluded, he pulled his son out of the tree and took him inside to Nanny Owen to wash for supper.

Lord Morecombe was awaiting him. “Come into my bookroom, Alex. There are some things we need to discuss.”

The medium-sized room was off the front hallway, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of what appeared to be well-read tomes.

When they were both seated, Felicity’s father behind a handsome desk, he said without preamble, “Grenville, have you broken your marriage vows?”

“No, my lord. Lady Beaton spoke falsely.”

Lord Morecombe eased back in his chair, considering this. “She caused a devil of a lot of heartache.”

“For both of us. I had no idea why Felicity had left me, and it took me days to find where you had gone. I did not know that I would ever see her again.”

“I am surprised by your concern. I have never thought that you loved my daughter, and neither has she.”

The man had a hard glint in his eye. His lips were a thin line. Alex felt a lowly creature, indeed. “I have been an unworthy husband to Felicity. I have never been unfaithful, nor have I ever wanted to be. I have been explaining it all to Felicity. I have been damnably dense. I mistook a boyish infatuation for Lady Beaton for love. What I have felt for your daughter is a much fuller, more robust emotion. In fact, I have loved
her
for years. But I never realized my feelings for what they were until she was injured and I spent a sleepless night at her bedside.”

“Well, I am glad you have that sorted, at least. That is a start.” The man still looked unwontedly stern.

“A start?”

“You may not have been unfaithful in deed, Alex, but for five years, my daughter has believed you to be in love with Lady Beaton. Felicity is a generous woman with a loving heart. What you have done by clinging to your boyhood infatuation is to convince my daughter that she is not enough for you.”

Alex felt the words like a blow. He stared at his father-in-law, taking in the meaning of his words. Standing, he began to pace about the small room, his hands clasped behind his back. “I deserve to be fried in Hell. What a thing!” Stopping, he inquired, “What am I to do, my lord? How am I to fix this?”

Lord Morecombe slapped his hands on his desk and stood. “Felicity has a warm heart. If you are constant in your attempts to let her know
why
you love her, I think you may be able to win her.”

“I shall take your advice and pray that it works.”

Walking out of the bookroom ahead of Lord Morecombe, he asked the housekeeper in the adjoining dining room if Felicity had yet returned. When he learned she had not, he became worried.

Setting out to meet her, he was alarmed at the darkness. He could not see the path. Making his way to the stables, he took the torch from the front of the carriage and lit it with the flint on the box. By its light, he was able to make out the path and began calling his wife’s name. It died on the wind.

He stumbled over a large stone and realized he had left the trail. How was Felicity to find her way without light? Knowing it was probably futile, he continued to call her name.

After a while, his straining ears heard a faint sound. Pressing forward, he listened as it became a bit clearer. He was finally able to make out the words.

“Alex! Here!”

He bellowed her name with all the power he could muster.

“Felicity! Darling!”

Endeavoring to follow the faint reply, he strayed further from the path. She must be lost. Alex wound around boulders, tripped over stones, and slid on the grass, wet from the sea breeze. He continued to call her, and she shouted back.

Finally, she was there on the lee side of a large boulder, sheltering from the wind, shivering from top to toe. Anchoring the torch in the ground, he pulled her beloved form into his arms. “Oh, my love! Why ever did you stay out so long?” He held her to him and savored the feeling, rubbing his hands over her to bring her some warmth.

“I was thinking.”

“Oh, Felicity, I know I have hurt you. But you must believe that I love you completely—with my whole soul. I love you because I cannot
not
love you! Everything you are draws me to you. I love you because you are Felicity.”

Finally able to contain himself no longer, he placed his mouth on hers and kissed her bruisingly, feeling her soft lips yield under his. “You are real, darling. Not some transparent illusion. You are my
wife
. The wife I want with all my heart.”

Her hair had fallen and was blowing about her face. Her gorgeous hair. Using both hands, he gathered it then wrapped it around his fist and pulled her head back gently. Kissing her eyebrows, her nose, and her jawline, he found her lips again. After a long, hungry kiss, he said, “Oh my dear, I have missed you from the depths of my soul. There is no bliss in this world like holding you.” He crushed her to him and whispered in her ear, “Please come back to me. I have been such a fool. I want nothing more than to live out my days with you and our children.”

He finally felt her melt against him. “Oh, Alex,” she murmured. “I cannot
not
love you, either. I have loved you so much for so long. I have wanted to tell you forever.”

She initiated another kiss, and this time when they broke apart, she kissed his chin, his cheeks, and the little bit of throat that was not covered by his neck cloth.

“You have to live a very long time, Felicity,” he told her. “It is going to take forever for me to prove how desperately in love with you I am.”

“You are making a good start,” she said with a low chuckle. “Merciful heavens, I think I am beginning to believe you.”

{ Epilogue }

N
ow that Felicity’s labor was proceeding into its seventh hour, Alex had eschewed his library at Grenville Manor and joined his aunt in his wife’s dressing room.

“Alex! Go away! You are supposed to be downstairs!”

“Where is Anabella?”

“She is with Felicity. We are taking shifts.”

His aunt was knitting what looked to be a pair of white booties. “She is doing remarkably well, Alex. You are not to worry! This is what women do!”

“Aunt, I feel I should be in there. I feel she needs me. She’s been at this for seven hours!”

“My dear, I do understand, but I do not think the midwife would.”

He heard a long groan coming from behind the door and felt the blood draining from his face.

“That is normal, darling. I told you, everything is proceeding very well.”

“Forgive me, Aunt, but you have never had a child. How do you know?”

Alex paced, feeling utterly helpless. Standing at the window, he observed the fierce storm blowing through the naked trees of the park. He spared a thought for his brother, riding through this storm tonight from Plymouth. He wished John were here now.

Lightning cracked close to the house, and his composure broke completely.

Without comment, he shouldered open the door to his wife’s chamber and was beside her in two strides. Felicity’s face was dead white and her hair curled damply around her face as she sat propped up against a pile of pillows. Her mouth made an
o
at the sight of him, and then she was gripped by a ferocious contraction. Throwing her head back, she gritted her teeth. Alex could see all the cords in her neck. Her hands were wadded in the sheets.