The Devil's Match (The Devil DeVere #4)(42)

She raised her cup and blew on the coffee. “Then I suppose I’ll just have to continue lazing abed in the mornings. Have you a letter from Hew?” She peered over his arm.

“From Hew and Ned both, actually. All is well with Phoebe and little Ned, and it seems I am soon to become an uncle as well.”

“Hew and Vesta too?” she cried. “Already?”

“My brother is nothing, if not efficient.”

“Efficient? How unflattering that sounds. I would have expected you to say something like virile or potent.”

“Perhaps I choose to reserve those accolades for myself,” he said with a significant pause. “By the by, Diana, when did you intend to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” she asked.

“Come now. You can’t possibly think that I haven’t noticed. Did you suppose I would be angry?”

“Angry about what? I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Ludovic.”

“My dear, no woman is able to accommodate a man with such frequency as you have done these past several months. Add to that your unusual lethargy, which I won’t flatter myself is entirely due to sexual exertion, I feel I must inquire, when was your last flux?”

“M-my flux?” She regarded him blankly.

“Yes, dearest. It is a normal cycle of nature that besets postpubescent females and plagues them at regular intervals for decades. I haven’t observed you suffering this particular affliction for some time.”

“Dear God! But you are right,” she cried. “The last time I had my courses was when we were in Florence.”

“Well over three months hence, my dear. Are you saying you weren’t trying to hide it from me? That you truly didn’t consider the possibility you could be—”

“It can’t be. I’m barren!” Diana’s hand shook. Coffee sloshed.

“Given the indications, you must forgive me for questioning the veracity of that statement. I regret that I became careless, but I believed it wasn’t possible for this to happen.”

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you!”

“That’s not what I meant!”

She rose abruptly with her blood roaring in her ears and her entire being flooding with panic. Cup and saucer smashed on the marble floor.

“Please, Diana.” He reached out to her. “We must speak of this.”

“Do you think we can just go along as if nothing has changed? This changes everything! It’s not only about you and me. It can never be the same between us now.” She pulled away with a stifled sob.

For fourteen glorious months, Diana had laughed, loved, and lived to the fullest, only for all to crumble before her eyes. “I want to go home! Please, Ludovic,” she cried, “take me home to England at once.”

***

Diana had refused to seek the attention of an Italian doctor, choosing instead to savor a few more weeks of denial, though it was more like wallowing in misery, for time itself confirmed both her inexpressible joy at the tiny life growing inside her and her desolation that the grande passion of her life would perforce come to an end.

Ludovic had told her from the very beginning he would not wed, and she had accepted what he was willing to offer. She had not suffered in the exchange. Besides being a magnificent lover, DeVere was kind and generous, intelligent, witty, worldly, and polished, but had never treated her with condescension. And while she had always known their time would eventually come to an end, she had been far too happy in the present to dwell upon the future, but now that future reared its ugly head.

In the weeks at sea, the divide only widened. Every time Ludovic had tried to breach the subject about the future, about security, she had refused to discuss what now lay inevitably between them. If she continued as his mistress, she would soon face shame and ostracism as the mother of DeVere’s illegitimate child, and worse, the product of their passion would be forever stigmatized as a bastard. That is what hurt the most and what Diana would never allow.

Upon arriving back in England, she made an immediate departure for Yorkshire.

“Please, Diana,” Ludovic pleaded as she entered the coach, “it doesn’t have to be like this. Just allow me some time to work out a solution.” He looked almost as desolate as she felt.

She guided his hand to her rapidly expanding belly. “Time is a commodity in short supply, my lord.”

“I told you I will care for you. You will share my residence if that is your choice. I would never allow you or this child to suffer any want.”

“You seem to overlook the simple want of a name,” she retorted bitterly.

“Damn it all, we are getting nowhere!” he cried, his features contorted with anguish. “I have to make you understand. This is not about love. It’s about honor. For I do love you, don’t you know that? More than I ever thought possible. But I am bound by my honor to my brother. I declared him my heir, he and his offspring. How can I rescind that? Don’t you see how it is? If I produce a legitimate heir, the law will supersede my will. I can’t do that to my only brother. Damn it all! A man should never have to choose between love and honor. This was not my choice!”

“I need time to think, Ludovic. Time alone. Please don’t follow me.”

“As you wish,” he replied stiffly.

The door closed, and Diana swiftly faced away lest he see her come undone, for that’s precisely how she felt, as if the very fiber of her being was slowly unraveling.