Love Only Once Read online

  Suddenly Anthony was laughing. “Tell me, Montieth, were you hoping she was illegitimate? A poor relation you could claim we were trying to foist off on you?”

  “That will be enough,” Edward warned again. “Nicholas… well, perhaps I shall have to concede that you didn’t know who Regina was. Not many people remember Melissa, she died so long ago.”

  “Melissa?”

  “Our only sister. She was much younger than Jason and I, the middle child. She was… well, I needn’t elaborate on how precious she was to us, being the only girl in the midst of four boys. Regina is her only child.”

  “She’s all they have left of Melissa,” Rebecca added. “Do you begin to see how important Regina is to the Malory brothers?”

  Nicholas was feeling sick.

  “I should tell you, in regard to my brother’s remark, that Regina is quite legitimate,” Edward went on. “Melissa was happily married to the Earl of Penwich.”

  “Penwich!” Nicholas nearly choked on the name he had cursed so many times.

  “The late Earl, Thomas Ashton,” Edward clarified. “Some obscure cousin has the title now. A disagreeable fellow, but he has no involvement with Regina. She has been under our care for the seventeen years since Melissa and Thomas died together in a terrible fire.”

  Nicholas’ mind whirled. Bloody hell. She was in fact Derek’s first cousin, the daughter of an Earl, niece to the Marquis of Haverston. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she was also an heiress. She could easily have landed a husband with a better title than his. Could have. But now that he had linked her name to his, she wasn’t quite the prize anymore, not to those families who wouldn’t touch a girl with a scandal behind her. Everyone in the room knew it, including himself. Yet there were other men who would want her, regardless, men less rigid than some.

  He said as much to Anthony. “You don’t seem to think she has lost her chance at a good match, so why are you willing to settle for me?”

  “Did I say I was, dear boy? No, no. She is the one who wants you, not I.”

  Nicholas cast about for a reply. “And as a favored niece, she gets want she wants?” he said.

  “There is the simple fact,” Edward intervened, “that if she married anyone else, the poor fellow would have to live with the scandal you have created being whispered behind his back for the rest of his life. That is a bit much for any man to take, and certainly wouldn’t make for a happy marriage.”

  Nicholas frowned. “But she would tell her husband the truth.”

  “What does the truth matter when it is the untruth that is believed by everyone?” Edward replied testily.

  “Am I to be held hostage to the narrow-mindedness of others, then?”

  “What the devil is the matter with you, Nicholas?” Rebecca demanded. “I’ve met the girl and she is the loveliest little creature I’ve seen in a long time. You will never get a better match, and you know it. Why are you fighting this?”

  “I don’t want a wife—any wife,” Nicholas said harshly.

  “What you want became irrelevant,” his grandmother retorted, “when you made off with an innocent girl whose family won’t overlook it as others have. You’re damned lucky they’ll let you have her!”

  “Be reasonable, Nicky,” Eleanor chimed in. “You have to marry sometime. You can’t go on forever as you’ve been doing. And this girl is charming, beautiful. She will make you a wonderful wife.”

  “Not my wife,” he stated flatly. In the silence that followed, his hopes began to rise, but his grandmother dashed them.

  “You’ll never be the man your father was. Running off to sea for two years, coming back to live the life of a wastrel, delegating your responsibilities to agents and lackeys. By God, I’m ashamed to admit you’re my grandson. And I tell you now, you may as well forget you know me if you don’t own up and marry this girl.” She stood up, her expression stony. “Come, Ellie. I have said all I will say to him.”

  Rebecca’s face remained coldly unrelenting as she left the room, Ellie beside her. But once the door closed behind them, she turned to Eleanor and gave her a huge conspiratorial grin. “What say you, my dear? Do you think that did the trick?”

  “That was a bit much about your being ashamed of him. You know you’re not. Why, you delight in his wild escapade more than he does. I swear, Rebecca, you should have been a man.”

  “Don’t I know it! But his little escapade is a godsend this time. I didn’t think he would put up this much of a fight, though.”

  “Didn’t you?” Eleanor retorted. “You know why he won’t marry. You know how he feels. Nicky refuses to force the stigma of his birth on an unsuspecting wife. He feels he cannot offer for a decent girl, yet his position makes it impossible for him to wed beneath his station. He decided simply never to wed. You know that.”

  Rebecca nodded, impatient, and said, “Which is why this is a godsend. Now he will have to marry, and into a good family, too. Oh, he doesn’t like it one bit, but eventually he’ll be glad. I tell you this girl won’t give a toot if she ever learns the truth.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “If I didn’t, then she wouldn’t be the one for him,” Rebecca said stoutly.

  They both knew exactly what motivated Nicholas, though he wasn’t aware that they knew. To the world, Miriam was his mother, and the day she ended that pretense—as she often threatened to do—was the day he could stop living in dread of the revelation and become the pariah he was trying his best to become beforehand. He wanted to be thought wicked so as to become accustomed to the treatment he could expect if the truth came out.

  “Someone ought to tell him that it probably wouldn’t matter much if the truth did come out,” Rebecca said. “No one would believe it anyhow, not after all these years.”

  “Why don’t you tell him that?” Ellie asked, knowing the answer.

  “Not me, my dear. Why don’t you?”

  “Oh, no.” Eleanor shook her head emphatically. “He feels too strongly about it.” She sighed. “We’ve been over this a hundred times, Rebecca. And besides, he’s finally going to take a bride and settle down and have his own family.”

  “So we hope,” Rebecca added. “But they haven’t got a yes out of him yet.”

  “Your attitude is most puzzling, Nicholas,” Edward was saying inside the drawing room. “If I didn’t know for certain that you were a skirt man, I’d begin to wonder.”

  Nicholas had to smile at that remark, coming from this staid lord. “My inclinations are decidedly female, sir.”

  “Yet you don’t want my niece?”

  Anthony spoke up harshly. “Look me in the eye when you answer, Montieth, for I’ve seen the mark you put on her.”

  “What’s this?” Edward demanded.

  “Relax, Eddie. Just something between the Viscount and myself. But what’s your answer, Montieth?”

  Nicholas flushed darkly in anger. He felt cornered and didn’t like it at all. Had he really marked the girl? If so, what the bloody hell was she doing letting her uncle know about it? They said she wanted to marry him. Damnation, had she given Anthony the impression that their encounter was less than innocent? Was that why this youngest uncle was hell-bent on his blood?

  “There is nothing wrong with your niece, my lords,” Nicholas said tightly, his amber eyes glowing with anger. “But then, you surely know that better than I.”

  “Yes, it can be said without prejudice that she is desirable in every way. Still, we can’t resolve this.” Edward sighed here. “Jason isn’t going to like this at all. He is her legal guardian, you see.”

  “Jason is going to tear him apart if there isn’t an engagement by the time he gets here,” Anthony said flatly. “Give it up, Eddie, and leave him to me. If Jason gets hold of him, there won’t be anything left.”

  Nicholas sat down again and put his head in his hands as they went on arguing between themselves. He liked and respected Derek’s father, Jason Malory, had hunted with him at Haverston and
spent long evenings with him over good brandy and good talk. He admired the way Jason ran Haverston and dealt with his people. The last thing he wanted was for Jason to be angry with him. But he couldn’t marry the girl, and he couldn’t tell them why.

  Never before had the bitterness of his parentage hurt him quite so much. The truth was that he was a bastard. And any woman who became his wife would suffer the stigma of his bastardy. He would be ostracized if the truth came out. Hadn’t he seen it happen to Derek Malory, who was a known bastard? It was why he felt a closeness to Derek that he didn’t feel with his other friends.

  Edward’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “I doubt Regina’s financial status would impress you, Nicholas, for your father’s wise investments and your own have made you a wealthy young man. Suffice it to say she is very well off. But… perhaps this will interest you.”

  Nicholas accepted the sheaf of papers that Edward brought out of his coat. Letters. His letters to the Earl of Penwich!

  “How the devil do you come by these?” he demanded incredulously.

  “They were forwarded to me just recently, as a matter of fact. The Earl is notorious for ignoring things that don’t interest him, and that piece of land you want doesn’t interest him.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because it belongs to a trust that I manage. It’s a nice little piece of land, with nearly a dozen tenants who all pay their rent regularly.”

  “It’s a bloody large estate and you know it, and not nearly put to its full potential,” Nicholas retorted.

  “I didn’t think you had such a fondness for land,” Edward remarked shrewdly. “After all, you don’t oversee Silverley.”

  A muscle jerked in Nicholas’ jaw. Hell and fire! He stood a better chance against his old enemy Captain Hawke without a weapon than he did against these Malorys.

  “Am I to understand I will never get my hands on that land if I don’t marry your niece?”

  “You might phrase it more delicately, but that’s the gist, yes.”

  “Refuse, Montieth,” Anthony tempted in a soft voice. “Meet me in the morning instead. I won’t kill you. I’ll aim a ways below your heart, so that the next girl you abscond with in the middle of the night will be believed when she says you’ve left her untouched.”

  Nicholas had to laugh. Gelding was the threat now? These were his options? He had no doubt that his grandmother could arrange jail, as she threatened. He’d be estranged from her, doubtless, and the truth was, he loved the old witch. Then there was death or grievous wounding if Anthony had his way. Those were the choices.

  Or he could marry the loveliest creature he had ever set eyes on. He could probably have the land he wanted. Aunt Ellie was for this marriage. His grandmother and all the Malorys were for it.

  Nicholas closed his eyes for a moment, apparently deep in thought. Then he opened them and stood up.

  “My lords,” he said evenly, “when is the wedding to be?”

  Chapter 11

  “SO you’ve come to escort your fiancée to Vauxhall Gardens? To a concert? Never thought I’d see you attending a bloody concert, and in the daytime, at that!”

  Derek Malory was enjoying himself immensely, and the look of pure disgust on Nicholas Eden’s face was perfect. They were in the drawing room at Edward’s house, in the very room where the infamous meeting had taken place the night before, and Nicholas had just arrived.

  “This is apparently the only way I’ll get to see her,” Nicholas told Derek. “They wouldn’t let me near her last night.”

  “Well, of course not. Wouldn’t have been proper. She was told to go to bed.”

  “You mean she actually takes orders?” Nicholas said in mock astonishment. “I thought everyone followed hers.”

  “Oh, I say. You really are put out about this. I don’t understand why. She’s first rate, you know, a real gem. Couldn’t do better.”

  “I would have preferred to pick my own wife, you understand, as opposed to having one forced on me.”

  Derek grinned. “Heard you put up quite a fuss. Couldn’t believe any of this when they told me, especially that you’d given in. Know how you don’t like to be told what to do, not one bit.”

  “Stop rambling, Derek,” Nicholas demanded. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I’m to come along, don’t you know. Cousin Clare and I are coming with you. Orders from Uncle Edward. Didn’t think you’d get her alone, did you? Can’t have any hanky-panky before the wedding.”

  Nicholas scowled. “What the hell difference would it make? I’m already supposed to have bedded her.”

  “No one believes that, Nick, at least no one in the family.”

  “Except your Uncle Anthony?”

  “Don’t know what he thinks,” Derek said more soberly. “But you’d best watch out for him. They’re especially close, you know, he and your intended.”

  “She’s his favorite niece?”

  “It’s more than that. He was only three years younger than Aunt Melissa, you see, and they were always inseparable. When she died, he was only seventeen. Her daughter kind of took Melissa’s place in his affections. All my uncles felt that way, including my father. But Uncle Anthony, being the youngest, was more like a brother to Regina. You wouldn’t believe the fights he had with my father once he came of age and moved to London, because the old man wouldn’t let him have her part of each year the way Uncle Edward does.” Derek chuckled. “The old man finally gave in because she wanted it, too, and there isn’t much she wants that he doesn’t give her.”

  Nicholas grunted. Regina was going to be impossibly spoiled. “Why is it I never met her at Haverston?”

  “She was always with Uncle Edward or Uncle Anthony when you came. They each had her for four months of the year by the time you started visiting me.” Derek laughed. “But you did meet her once, that first time I brought you home. She was the little hoyden who spilled the bowl of pudding in your lap when you teased her.”

  “But you called the child Reggie!” Nicholas cried.

  “We all call Regina Reggie, and she’s grown now. Do you remember her?”

  He groaned. “How could I forget? She stuck her tongue out at me when I threatened to blister her bottom.”

  “Yes, well, she didn’t like you at all after that. She was at the house once more, I believe, when you came to visit, but she stayed out of your way.”

  “She told me that, when you told her about me, she loved me,” Nicholas said dryly.

  “Oh, she did love you then, I’m sure,” Derek chuckled. “But that was before she met you. She was especially fond of me, you see, and she was pleased with anyone who befriended me.”

  “Bloody hell. Next you’ll tell me she was your playmate.”

  “Shouldn’t surprise you, old chap. After all, I was only six when she came to Haverston. I admit I led her astray, there being only the two of us. Dragged her everywhere with me. ‘Course the old man had a bloody fit when he finally realized she was fishing and hunting instead of sewing, out climbing trees and building forts in the woods instead of tending to her music. Did you know he married just to give us a mother? Hoped it would have a steadying influence. Poor choice though. Love the old girl, but sickly, you know. Spent more time at Bath getting the cure than she did at Haverston.”

  “Are you telling me I’m marrying a tomboy?”

  “Heavens no! Remember, she’s spent part of every year with Uncle Edward’s family for the past thirteen years, and Edward’s got three girls near her age. When she was here with them, she was brilliant at her studies, an angel of decorum and all that. Of course, we still had our fun when she was at Haverston. I can’t even count all the times we got called on the carpet by the old man. And she never got the worst of it, I did. By the time she was fourteen, she had lost her hoydenish ways, though. She was even running the household by then, for our mum was hardly ever there.”

  “So she was running one household, studying at another, and what, I’d like to know,
did she learn at the third?”

  Derek chuckled at his vicious tone. “Now don’t eat me. Actually, her time with Uncle Anthony was like a holiday. He did his best to see she enjoyed herself. And he prob’ly taught her how to deal with chaps like us.” Then he said seriously, “They all love her, Nick. You won’t get around that, no matter what.”

  “Am I then to be burdened with interfering in-laws the rest of my life?” Nicholas asked coldly.

  “I doubt it will be so bad. After all, you’ll have her to yourself out at Silverley.”

  The thought was worth relishing, but it would never come to that. Nicholas had given in to their bullying, but he actually had no intention of marrying Regina Ashton. Somehow he had to make her break their engagement. She might have a cousin who was a bastard, but she wouldn’t have a husband for one as well.

  Derek was luckier than Nicholas, for he had lived his twenty-three years knowing what he was and not letting it bother him. But Nicholas hadn’t found out about his birth until the age of ten. And before the revelation, the woman he’d thought was his mother had made his life miserable simply because he did believe her to be his mother. He had never understood why she hated him, treated him worse than a servant, continually belittling him, berating him. She’d never even pretended to like him, not even in his father’s presence. It was more than any child should have endured.

  One day, when he was ten years old, he’d innocently called her “mother,” something he rarely did, and suddenly she screamed at him, I am not your mother! I am sick of pretending to be. Your mother was a whore trying to take my place—a whore!

  His father had been there, the poor man. Little did his father know that nothing could have made Nicholas happier than to learn that Miriam was not his mother. It was only later that he realized how cruelly the world treated bastards.

  His father was forced to tell him the truth that day. Miriam had had many miscarriages in the first four years of her marriage to Charles, and the doctor’s warning that it might always be so strained the marriage badly. Charles didn’t actually say so, but Nicholas figured out that Miriam acquired an aversion to the marriage bed. Charles found comfort elsewhere.