‘To prove Max was wrong? I am beginning to think that game is not worth the prize.’
‘No, this is nothing to do with Max.’ She ran her tongue over her dry lips and swallowed. She said, forcing the words out, ‘I am carrying your child.’
He said nothing, but she felt a shudder run through him. She removed her hand and stepped back. The silence continued, unbroken, and at last, with a sigh, she turned and left the room.
* * *
Dominique fled to her bedchamber. Kitty was already there, waiting to help her change for dinner. She thought about dismissing her maid and indulging in a hearty bout of tears, but instead she fought down her unhappiness and allowed herself to be helped into the blue satin she had chosen to wear to Lady Torrington’s card party.
* * *
Long after the door had closed Gideon remained staring down into the fire. So this was it, the last link in the chain that would bind him to his wife forever. A child. How ironic, that the heir to Rotham should have French blood in his veins, after all his family had suffered at the hands of that nation. It might be a girl, of course, but what did it matter? He would not cast off the mother of his child.
He raised his eyes to the mirror. It was as if the ghosts of his brother and his aunt were at his shoulders. He waited, expecting to feel their disapprobation, but he felt...nothing. This baby was innocent of its history—as was his wife. He realised that he was in an impossible position: he could not turn his back on his marriage, any more than he could give up his inheritance. Nicky might not be the wife he had dreamed of, and he had never wanted to be his father’s heir, but it was so. It was too late for regrets, he must move on and make what he could of his life.
There was a tangible lightening of the air around him, as if the shades of his brother and his aunt had disappeared.
* * *
Dominique was sitting at her dressing table while Kitty put the finishing touches to her hair when Gideon came in. Quietly she dismissed her maid, but remained in her seat, looking into the mirror as Gideon came to stand behind her.
‘What you said. A baby. Are you—quite sure?’
She nodded. ‘As sure as I can be.’ She saw the dawning wonder and confusion on his countenance and turned to face him. He dropped on to one knee and took her hands.
‘Then...perhaps you should be resting—do you want me to send our apologies to Lady Torrington?’
‘No, no, there is no need for that.’
‘Then, what shall we do? What do you want to do?’
His bewilderment dragged a shaky laugh from her.
‘I want us to have dinner, Gideon, and to go to Torrington House. It is early days yet, no one need know that I am increasing.’ She met his eyes. ‘I want us to go on exactly as we are, Gideon.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am very sure.’
She did not have the courage to ask him not to avoid her bed and could only hope he understood her.
‘Then I will go and change.’
‘Please do.’ She smiled. ‘You will incur Cook’s wrath if his dinner is spoiled because he has to wait for you.’
She turned back to her mirror, to pin up the last few curls.
‘One more thing.’ He stopped at the door. ‘Of course you must do everything you can to find your father. You do not need to involve me—I will direct Rogers, the family lawyer, to come and see you.’
Even as she struggled to find the words to thank him, he was gone.
* * *
Gideon was more attentive than usual at dinner and towards the end of their evening at Torrington House, instead of going off to join his friends at White’s and leaving his wife to make her own way home, he elected to accompany her back to Brook Street. When she remonstrated with him, declaring that she did not wish to curtail his pleasure, he replied with perfect sincerity that escorting her home was his pleasure.
They were in the hall, waiting for their carriage, and as he took his wife’s cloak from the footman and gently placed it about her shoulders, Gideon reflected on the change that had come over him in the past few months. By heaven, he was becoming quite domesticated! His wife’s soft voice brought him back to the present.
‘I heard Mr Williams say you had been invited to Martlesham House.’ There was a note of uncertainty in her voice.
Gideon gave her shoulders a little squeeze.
‘I have no interest in associating with Max or his friends.’ He escorted her to their waiting carriage and settled himself comfortably beside her before adding, ‘I think I have outgrown such company.’
‘I am glad. I fear Max has little regard for the feelings of others.’
‘None at all, but it was not until he hoaxed me that I saw just how thoughtless he is.’ He turned towards her, saying earnestly, ‘I was careless, too. It was wrong of me to punish you for his trickery. I was a fool, Nicky, but I hope I have learned my lesson now.’
‘Oh, Gideon—’
‘I know this marriage is not what either of us wanted,’ he rushed on, needing to explain, to make amends. ‘But it will not be so bad, I promise you. I have no doubt we will rub along very well. And once the little matter of an heir is out of the way I shall not importune you with unreasonable demands.’
She had twisted in her seat and raised her hand, as if to touch his cheek, but now it fell again.
‘Un-unreasonable?’
‘Yes. I shall not expect you to submit to my...attentions.’ He frowned. ‘What is it, Nicky? Have I upset you?’
‘No, no.’ She shook her head quickly. ‘I am merely tired, that is all.’
She drew back into the shadows of the carriage and they lapsed into silence. Gideon hoped she understood what he had been trying to say. He feared he had phrased it very badly, yet he could not bring himself to state it quite as baldly as his father had done. Gideon could still remember his father’s words as they had lowered the wasted body of the viscountess into the family vault. ‘So many years of pain, the stillborn babes, the illness—if I had taken a mistress for my lusts I would have spared your poor mother a great deal of suffering.’
His father had been at pains to impress upon him a husband’s responsibilities: his wife would expect to give him a son, perhaps two, but childbearing was a perilous occupation and a gentleman would not overtax his wife’s delicate body with his demands. That was twelve years ago. Gideon had been a mere boy of sixteen and devastated by the death of his kind, gentle mother. He had dreamed of joining the army, but his widowed father had insisted upon keeping him close, and when James had died two years later, Gideon’s fate had been sealed. Not for him the glories of the battlefield. The title and the heavy responsibility of the estate and its people was his fate. Was it any wonder, then, that when the inheritance from his godmother had given him his independence he had rushed to town and proceeded to kick up every kind of spree and lark? That was when he had fallen in with Max’s set and proceeded to prove to his new friends that he could drink, gamble and wench with the best of them. Or perhaps that should be the worst. His father clearly thought so.
* * *
When they reached Brook Street, Gideon suggested they should take wine together in the drawing room, but Nicky declined and with a brief goodnight she disappeared up the stairs. He watched her go and a shard of disappointment pierced him. She did not want his company, and, now she was carrying his child, she would not want him in her bed.
* * *
Invitations were flooding into Brook Street for balls, routs, riding parties and soirées and Dominique acknowledged that her sister-in-law was in no