The Earl of Argyle hesitated. “Bloody hell,” he ground out.
“Exactly,” the duke said.
“So you are marrying her because fate has forced your hand?”
He nodded, untethered and barely able to contain himself.
“This is a terrible, terrible thing,” the Earl of Argyle intoned, closing his book with a solid thud, his signet ring winking in the sunlight. “Unless it’s not.”
“Don’t talk in circles Argyle,” Garret ground out. “I don’t have patience for it. Not today.”
“You don’t have to have patience, mon,” Argyle said flatly. “It’s happening to you. You can be as patient or impatient about it as you like, and you’ve done the right thing. You know that?”
He nodded, his insides tightening. He wanted to hope. Damnation he wanted to hope, but it was that kiss of hope that was ripping him apart. “Yes, I’ve done the right thing, and I’m glad at the possibility of a child, but what if—”
“No,” Argyle cut in with brutal precision. “You must notwhat ifanything about this. Do notwhat ifat all, my friend.”
But he couldn’tnotwhat if.
It had already hit him like a brick wall tumbling due to a bad foundation. The dreams had begun again. The dreams of his children, the dreams of his small babes crying out to him, of him not being able to save them when the fevers struck.
He could still feel their hot bodies in his arms, their cries, their whimpers. Their call ofPlease, papaas if he could somehow beat back the infection himself and go to war with God.
He would have done.
He would have fought God himself if he had known how, but God did not allow such wars.
Even a duke could not dole out who lived and died.
It had been tempting to hate God then, but what was the point of that? Children died every day. He was no different from the masses. No different from a man in the East End who lost his babes because the water was bad, or the air was full of coal, or he could not gain heat for his small rooms, or failed to obtain a doctor for them.
No, in truth, he’d been fortunate.
Fortunate his children had at least died in relative comfort. His wife had passed away on a feather bed, and he had held them and buried them in a resplendent crypt.
How could he be angry at God for that? No. There was no rhyme or reason for the death of children or the loss of loved ones so quickly and suddenly.
He had thought he had pushed the agony of it so deep inside him that it would not be able to rear its head.
Truly, he should only feel joy that the potentiality of a child was on the horizon, but he did not feel just joy. He felt joy and, in turn, utter terror, and then grief. A grief so thick and so full that if he was not careful, it would swallow him up, and he would not be able to draw breath again.
He was swimming hard against a fast current.
“I see it,” Argyle said sharply.
“What?” he barked.
“The hell you are in. Don’t give in to it, and don’t let her see it,” Argyle warned. “She can’t see that right now. It is her job to protect the babe inside her, and she must feel that you are on her side.”
“Iamon her side,” he growled, flexing his hands and then balling them into fists.
“Not right now you are not,” Argyle countered, stepping away from his books, his green banyan trailing behind him. “You’re going to do the right thing, but right now you are on no one’s side. You are in hell, my friend, and until we can pull you out of it, you must not let her see.”
He nodded, sucking in a breath, trying not to be pulled under.
It was true. He could not let her see the depth of the hell he was in or let her feel the fear that he felt. She must think of nothing but how beautiful the babe would be when it was born, how well it would be, and how well she would be after the birth.
He wouldn’t allow himself to linger on what he had seen, the statistics of the babes who died in childbirth and the mothers who could not be rescued by doctors, or even worse, the fathers who let the mothers die so the babe could be born.