She faltered at the front door, her hand on the latch. No, she could not love him. It had been the one rule between them. She had been so certain they could never love one another that she had laughed when he had admitted the day after their wedding night that he worried she would develop feelings for him. Could she have truly been so foolish as to break that promise to him? But, even worse, could she have truly broken the promise she had made to herself all those years ago? No matter the time that passed, she would never forget her heartbreak when Lord Owens had betrayed her affections. Nor would she forget how it felt to be reminded that she could never be loved for who she was.
It did not take even a moment, however, to realize she had been that foolish. She loved Ash, and she wanted their marriage to be a real one.
She sucked in a sharp breath. The temptation to make a life with Ash and the girls, to have a family that accepted her for who she was, curled through her. It was a foolish desire—and one she had not realized she carried in her heart until this moment. Her entire life had been spent not fitting in, never being accepted for who she was. And feeling shame that she would never conform to the prescribed mold her parents insisted was her place in the world. She had come to terms with it, and had told herself if she was not happy, at least she was content.
Now here were people who wanted her to succeed. Could they—even Ash—come to love her as well?
So shocked was she at the unexpected longing that coursed through her, she did not immediately see the carriage in the front drive when she flung open the front door—or the people alighting from it.
Damnation, her parents were here? She froze, her hand still on the latch, remembering their last visit to Caulnedy, and she wanted nothing more than to turn and disappear back into the house to hide. She could have the butler inform them she was out for a walk. Or that she was indisposed. And would be for the next twenty years.
Before she could do just that, however, her mother spied her.
“Bronwyn, darling,” she exclaimed, rushing forward. “My dear girl. My wonderful daughter. When we heard you were once more entertaining guests we could not fail to return. But how well you look.”
She embraced Bronwyn, enveloping her in her plump arms before stepping back then, looking her up and down. “Though still as thin as ever,” she clucked. “Mr. Pickering, look how thin our daughter is.”
“She is at that,” her father declared, coming forward and pinching her cheek. “Best put some meat on those bones, Poppet, else Buckley shall not be able to do his duty in planting the next duke in your belly.”
He laughed uproariously, his wife along with him. Bronwyn, for her part, could only stare numbly at them. It was not anything she had not heard before. Though in the past their comments on her curves, or lack thereof, had never touched on her ability to get with child. This newest addition to their critique made it so much worse.
“But come and see,” he continued, oblivious to her distress. “We have brought you a surprise all the way from London.”
Through her numbness, a fatalistic dread swept over Bronwyn, an intuition that something horrible was about to occur. What in the world could her parents have sent for all the way from London?
Or, rather, who, she thought as an elderly woman stepped down from the carriage, followed by a light-haired man who was all too familiar. And whom Bronwyn had prayed she would never have to see again.
“Lord Owens,” she breathed. “And Lady Brindle.”
The dowager marchioness and her grandson looked at her with the same disdain they had shown her when she had last seen them in London. It was a memory she had done her best to forget over the past six years, that moment when her dreams had come crashing down around her head, even as her family had been forced to flee the city lest Bronwyn’s heartbreak be made public.
But why had her parents brought them here? A foolish question, she soon realized. The elder Pickerings had been embarrassed and furious over the entire situation in London. Since then, this duo had been the reason her parents had been so determined in the following years that Bronwyn marry a lofty title. They had been certain that, should they have a daughter who was of equal footing or a higher position than the marchioness, the woman would be forced to concede she had made a mistake in forcing them from London.
“Doesn’t married life suit our daughter?” her mother simpered. “We did not want to lose Bronwyn for anything; we love her so very much. But how could we separate two people so in love? I daresay dear Buckley could have been a pauper, and we could not have refused her.” She tittered. “How lucky for us he was not a pauper at all, but aduke.”
Bronwyn blanched, not only for the fact that her mother had referred to Ash asdear Buckleyand was flaunting his title, but also that she had stated the marriage was a love match. It should not distress her; the woman had already told anyone who would listen that the duke had fallen head over heels in love with her at first sight. Her mother did not believe a word of it; rather, she said it to give herself more importance in the eyes of her audience. Especially now, as she rubbed Ash’s title in Lady Brindle and Lord Owens’s faces in the most embarrassingly obvious way possible.
Yet now that Bronwyn knew for certain she had fallen in love with her husband, it was like a vicious blow. Ash, she knew, did not—could not—feel the same.
Lady Brindle dipped into a curtsy, though it was rudely shallow. “Your Grace,” she said, eyes narrowed as she took Bronwyn in from her mop of chaotic curls to the tips of her half-boots. “I wish you joy on your marriage.”
“Yes,” Lord Owens said in his smooth way, bowing even as his gaze held her own with a disturbing degree of intimacy, as if they shared a special joke between just the two of them. “Please do accept our felicitations. Forgive us for not attending your wedding, but we could not make it out of London in time. You understand.”
“Of course,” she managed, even as her skin crawled. How could she have ever thought this man handsome and kind? How could she have ever believed herself to be in love with him?
But they were all looking at her in expectation. Flushing, she said, “Won’t you come in?”
“How kind of you to offer,” Lady Brindle drawled with a curl of her lips so slight Bronwyn nearly missed it.
Bronwyn led the group into the house, giving quick instructions to the butler before showing her guests to the drawing room. All the while she felt everyone’s eyes on her, watching her as if she were an animal in a menagerie. For more than a week she had forgotten what this was like, the constant feeling of disappointing everyone around her, the expectation for her to do something and her not having an idea what that thing was.
But she was a duchess, Bronwyn told herself as her mother went into raptures over the house and Lady Brindle looked about her as if she were in a beggar’s hovel. Surely she could handle one disapproving marchioness and her heartless grandson.
***
Ash had thought he would be much too busy to miss Bronwyn. He had never before taken the three girls on an outing, after all, and had not known what to expect. No doubt it would be a stressful, chaotic endeavor.
But though he had been in a constant state of alert, making certain Nelly did not slip on the rocks surrounding the pools, breaking up quarrels, and answering all manner of questions, Bronwyn was never far from his thoughts. In those rare moments of quiet, he could not help but think of her in this very spot when last they’d been here, the feel of her above and around him. Nor could he forget last night, the way his heart had opened up to her and he had realized his love for her. It was something he had never experienced with anyone. And it still had the power to shake him. All day long he had looked forward to returning to her so he might hold her again.