"You don't love me."
He pulled her shoulders around until she faced him. "You don't believe in love any more than I do. You think it weakens women. Ashby Merewether told me."
She couldn't deny his charge, so she focused on something else. "What happens when you stop wanting me?"
"I'll never stop wanting you." The words sounded suspiciously like a vow.
Thea slid another surreptitious glance at Drake as he took notes on the ledger spread open at the library desk. His fingers holding the pencil were so strong and she remembered how much pleasure they brought her. Pleasure that had come with a price, if only he knew it. What would he say if she told him about her experience over the chamber pot this morning?
She felt perfectly well now, which was more alarming than if the nauseous feeling had persisted. If it had persisted, she could convince herself that it was due to illness, or land sickness, though that ailment was better known to occur after long sea voyages. Her time aboard the Golden Dragon had neither been so long in duration, nor so recent, that land sickness could be a realistic explanation for waking this morning with an overwhelming urge to cast up her accounts.
She had never heard of a flu lasting only as long as it took to void one's stomach either. And although her skin had been clammy to the touch, she had not had a fever. She had to definitely rule out illness as an excuse. That left only one alternative.
Morning sickness.
She was pregnant with Pierson Drake's child.
* * *
Chapter 16
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Langley must now realize that Estcot's word of honor is as reliable as Prinny's temper. Had this happened five years ago, I would have taken the first ship back to England, sure that I could finally convince Langley of my innocence. Yet, in all this time, he has never mentioned me to Lady Upworth. She despairs of raising the subject of my seeing Jared anymore because of his cold reception to the idea. It is no use. I have built a life for myself and Thea here. There is no hope of seeing my son before he reaches his majority.
March 1, 1804
Journal of Anna Selwyn, Countess of Langley
Thea hugged the knowledge of her pregnancy to herself, thrilled despite the ramifications it must bring.
The prospect of bearing Drake's child sent warmth and trepidation cascading through her all at once. Could she risk her freedom and perhaps her happiness as well by marrying him?
She chewed on her lower lip. Were she to admit the truth, she would have to acknowledge that the decision to marry him had occurred the moment she accepted his body into her own. Not because he so arrogantly assumed she would marry him, but because once they had made love, he owned a part of her that would never be wholly hers again.
It had been inevitable. No matter how desperately she had tried to protect herself from her feelings for him, they had steadily grown within her.
She feared she loved him—and it was all his fault.
With silky black hair that she longed to bury her fingers in, eyes that mesmerized her with their intensity, and a male physique that Gentleman Jackson would be proud to possess, Drake was more attractive than any gentleman had a right to be.
Added to his immense physical appeal, he had unswerving honor and diligence. Even his arrogance drew her. It went against everything she believed she would want in a husband, and yet she found that she actually had come to rely on it.
When she lacked confidence, his supreme assurance buoyed her. When she had first stepped off the ship and realized what a totally different world England was from her island, her belief in herself and her ability to find the embezzler in her company failed. Drake, on the other hand, had not wavered in his certainty that they would unmask the thief before any harm could come to Uncle Ashby.
Further, he exhausted himself making it happen. She had noticed dark rings under his eyes this morning at breakfast. When she had taxed him with it later, he admitted that he had been parti
cipating in the nightlong watch over the Merewether Shipping office.
He pushed her to make amends with her family, but only because he wanted her to have everything. A place in the ton, a father, a brother. If only he knew the final act of cruelty her father had committed. He would understand that though she would attempt to have a relationship with her brother, she could never give her father a place in her life.
"What?" His irritated voice startled her out of her musings. "You've been staring at me for the past ten minutes. What is it?"
She stalled for time before answering his question. "Does it bother you when I look at you?"
"It bothers me when you look through me." He pushed the ledger away. "We will find the thief. You need to stop making yourself sick with worry about it. The man I sent to watch over Merewether is tough and trustworthy. He won't let anything happen to your uncle."
There was another example of his protective concern for her. He had sent an agent to watch her uncle immediately upon reaching port even though she had told him about her confiding in Philippe.