Stark fear slashed across her features. She obviously hadn't considered that the damage might have already been done. "And if I'm not?"
"Then our marriage will end."
"What if I am… with child?"
"Then we'll be forced to endure this sham marriage. Whether you choose to stay or leave after the baby's birth-"
"I could never abandon my child."
A bitter laugh escaped him. "Really? You're certainly willing to abandon your commitment to our marriage. Given that fact, I'm not sure what you are capable of."
Something flashed in her eyes, and for a moment he thought she meant to argue, but she merely pressed her lips together.
"One more thing," he said. "I shall expect you to behave with the utmost propriety during the next two months. You will speak of this to no one and you will do nothing to bring shame upon me or my family. Do you understand? I'll not have my wife bearing some other man's child."
Again he thought he detected a flash of raw pain in her eyes, but she merely lifted her chin and said "I will not be unfaithful."
"You're damned right, you won't. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get dressed. I'll make the necessary arrangements for your stay in the country."
"What about me helping you find William?"
"If you see anything else, send me a message. I shall conduct my own investigation from here. Without you."
Striding across the room, he opened the adjoining door to her bedchamber. She stood still for several heartbeats, her gaze riveted on his, her expression unreadable. Then she swiftly crossed the room and walked into her chamber. Austin closed the door after her and very deliberately turned the lock into place. The click reverberated through the sudden silence.
Alone in his chamber, he braced his fists against the door and closed his eyes against the emotions battling inside him, stabbing him, consuming him, overwhelming him until he wanted to scream. Half of him was furious. Coldly, darkly furious.
The other half of him hurt so badly he nearly fell to his knees. There was an empty hole in his chest where his heart had beaten only minutes before. Before Elizabeth had torn it out with her bare hands and sliced it in two.
Before he'd met her, he'd been only half a man, existing yet not living. She'd made him whole with her sweetness and innocence, laughter and love… but they didn't really exist. He'd never thought a woman would want him for himself, but he'd believed Elizabeth had. He'd never thought he'd fall in love, but he had with a heart and soul he'd thought gone forever.
Walking to the window, he pulled the curtain aside, and looked with unseeing eyes out the window at a world suddenly gone bleak.
She'd made him love her.
And it was all an illusion.
Until Elizabeth, he'd never carried around hopes and dreams for his future. He'd been consumed by the secrets he carried inside and had moved from one meaningless affair to another, from one club to the next, from one boring party to another.
But she'd changed him. She'd turned him from that cynical, detached lonely man into someone with hope for the future… a future filled with happiness, a loving wife, and fine, healthy children.
And now all his newly found hopes and dreams were gone. Vanished. Shattered. She'd said she couldn't bear to lose someone else she loved-yet she was willing to lose him. And that left no doubt what her feelings toward him were.
God Almighty, if he didn't hurt so damn bad if he wasn't so racked with pain and anguish, he could almost laugh. The "incomparable, invulnerable" Duke of Bradford brought to his knees by a woman… a woman he'd thought was the answer to all his dreams. Dreams he hadn't even known he had.
Instead she'd turned out to be his worst nightmare.
Elizabeth stared numbly at the door Austin had just closed and listened to the lock fall into place with a click that echoed in her mind like a death knell.
Just as she wondered if she'd ever feel anything again, pain ripped through her, exploding everywhere, searing her very skin. Clapping her hands over her mouth to contain a cry of anguish, she sank to her knees on the floor.
Never, ever, would she forget the look on his face, the gentle tenderness her words had turned into bitterness; the warmth changed into icy indifference; the caring into loathing.
Dear God she loved him so much. So much that she couldn't bear to give him a child who would die. She'd never make him understand that he would blame himself for their daughter's death, and that his guilt and anguish would destroy him. That he would never recover.
She'd paid with her soul to offer him his freedom. But the cost to her did not matter. An honorable man like Austin would balk at ending their union, would have consigned himself to enduring a lifetime with her and a childless marriage. A celibate marriage. He deserved happiness, a proper wife, children to love. She would have said anything to convince him. And she had.
A bitter laugh erupted from her throat as she recalled her words. I fancied being a duchess… I cannot have children with you… but I could with someone else. It was my child with you who died.
Those lies had cost her everything. The man she loved. Children. She could never, would never, be with any other man. She'd nearly choked on the words I fancied being a duchess. She'd said them as a last resort, when it became clear that he wasn't going to accept her decision unless she extinguished every bit of caring he had for her. And now he believed her to be nothing more than a scheming fortune hunter and a liar. The effort of keeping her anguish hidden, of making him believe she'd wanted a title, wanted a life without him, had nearly killed her.
But then he'd made it so much worse with his declaration of love. I love you, Elizabeth. She couldn't contain the tortured sob that rose from her chest. How much more pain could she bear before she simply shattered? To have longed for the precious gift of his love, to have been given that gift, then to have had to destroy it… to see that love fade from his eyes, replaced by hurt, then anger and disgust… Dear God how was she going to survive this?
And what if it was all for naught?
What if she were already pregnant?
Chapter 19
Elizabeth snipped fragrant lilac blooms from a leafy bush along the perimeter of the formal garden at Wesley Manor, the country estate just outside London that had been her home for the past three weeks. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand so as not to cut her fingers, but it was nearly impossible.
Three weeks had passed since her confrontation with Austin.
Three weeks since he'd sent her here, sent her away from him with nothing more than a terse note: You will send a message immediately should you see something or when you know if yo 're with child.
But after three weeks she hadn't had a single vision… hadn't felt anything but heartache. And she still didn't know if she was with child. Every night she lay in her lonely bed, filled with anxiety, her hands resting on her stomach, trying to sense if a child grew within her, but all she saw was darkness. Unrelenting darkness.
These had been the longest, loneliest three weeks of her life.
Yet the alternative, living in the same house as Austin, facing him every day, trying to hide her misery and live the lie she'd created would have proven impossible. She was much better off here.
Even so, the anguish that was her constant companion showed no signs of abating. She tried to keep herself busy, to keep her thoughts occupied so as not to torture herself wondering what he was doing. Or whom he was doing it with.
But no matter how many flowers she picked how much lilac water she distilled how many hours she spent reading or roaming the grounds, nothing eased the ache in her heart. She tried to console herself with the knowledge that her actions had spared Austin the torment of losing a child and the emptiness of a cold marriage bed but nothing could erase the agony that clawed at her every time she pictured his face.