The China Bride

  “Not after several brandies.”

  “Ah.” Dominic set aside his glass in favor of ale and a sandwich made from crusty bread and thick slabs of ham. “What’s wrong, Kyle? I’ve felt as if I’ve been kicked in the stomach since yesterday morning. I haven’t been, so it must be you.”

  Kyle sighed. “How do you always know when things aren’t going well?”

  “You do it, too. Besides being twins, I think we both inherited a touch of Highland second sight from Mother. Remember that bad fall I had when hunting in the Shires? You knew immediately, and were at my bedside bullying me within two days.”

  Kyle remembered that time vividly, along with the almost unbearable fear he’d felt when his brother fought at Waterloo, and the days after when Dominic had been missing in action. Such awareness was the dark side of the twin bond they shared.

  All levity gone, Dominic said, “I knew that something horrible had happened to you in China. I…I couldn’t believe you were dead, yet thought I must be deluding myself because the horror didn’t pass. Though it ebbed some after you were released from prison, it’s never really gone away. For a long time I wondered if your soul was in purgatory.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It feels as if you still are.”

  His last sentence hung in the air as an oblique question.

  No point in delaying the inevitable. “Troth left this morning for Scotland.”

  “For how long?”

  “She won’t be back. Ever.”

  Dominic gave him a slanting glance. “Hence the decanter of brandy.”

  “We never intended a real marriage, so we told people here that we’d performed a nominal handfast as a way of helping Troth leave China. With the year and a day mostly over, naturally she’s gone.”

  Not fooled, Dominic said, “For someone who didn’t want to be married, you’re absorbing quite a lot of brandy in the absence of your nonwife.”

  Kyle closed his eyes, temples throbbing. “I’m…very fond of Troth. I’ll miss her.”

  “So she was the one who wanted to end it? Odd. I had the impression that she was more than a little fond of you.”

  “Fondness isn’t marriage.”

  Sandwich gone, Dominic returned to his brandy. “Are you going to make me pull this out of you one word at a time, Kyle? I will if necessary, but it will be easier for both of us if you just tell me what the devil went wrong.”

  Kyle stared at the licking flames, appreciating the warmth. He hadn’t known he was cold until Dominic arrived. “It was…difficult for both Troth and me. As she said, we’re more than old lovers, but less than true mates. I didn’t like seeing her go, but it was the only fair thing to do. She has spent most of her life feeling like an outsider. She deserves to find a man who can put her in the middle of his world forever.”

  “And you can’t?”

  “I loved that way once. I’m not capable of doing it again.”

  “Let me see if I understand this properly. You’re saying that you don’t and can’t love Troth, so even though losing her is tearing you up, that isn’t love?”

  “Not the way I loved Constancia.” Kyle closed his eyes, remembering. “I never told even you this, but I married Constancia just before she died in Spain. Part of me died with her. I can never love anyone as I loved her.”

  Instead of showing decent sympathy, Dominic said, “Of course you can’t. Your feelings for her were unique, rooted in whatever qualities made her special to you. More than that, Constancia was your first love, and a great love. But losing her doesn’t mean you can’t love another woman in a different but equally powerful way.”

  “I’ve never had your roving eye or resilient heart,” Kyle said dryly.

  “Until I met Meriel, I’d never been more than a little bit in love, though that was enough to teach me that each time and each woman is different. Thank God I’ve never lost a great love. If something happened to Meriel…” A shadow passed over Dominic’s face. “Let’s not talk about that. What I wanted to say is that love is not a finite substance that is used up and never replenished. The way you loved Constancia proves you have a tremendous capacity for loving. Isn’t it possible that you already love Troth at least a little, and you might come to love her more with time?”

  Kyle opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped. “How do you define love?”

  “You don’t believe in easy questions, do you?” Dominic absently flicked droplets of brandy into the fire, where they burst into blue flame. “Passion is the seed of romantic love, and it has flowered with the years in ways I could never have imagined when Meriel and I first married. But there is so much more. Friendship. Talking and trusting. The itchy feeling I get when I haven’t seen her for a while. A tenderness that makes my heart glow just thinking about her.” Another flurry of brandy flares. “The fact that I would give my life to save hers as instinctively as I breathe.”

  Kyle considered the list. Passion? He and Troth certainly shared that. Friendship and conversation, too. God knew he was itchy in her absence, and she’d always inspired protective tenderness. Nor would he hesitate to sacrifice himself for her, but that was a given, since she would have done the same for him. She’d risked her life to visit him in prison and would have tried to help him escape even knowing the attempt was doomed. Yet none of those qualities matched the depth of the closeness he’d had with Constancia. “Isn’t love more than the sum of those parts?”

  “Yes. But I don’t have words to describe that,” Dominic said slowly. “Except to say that Meriel is my heart. Yet oddly enough, when Philip was born, I found there was plenty of room in my heart for him, and for Gwynne in her turn. If we have another child, there will be more than enough love waiting.”

  “You’re better at loving than I.”

  “We’re not that different, Kyle. It’s harder for you to let yourself feel, I think—you had to protect yourself more when we were growing up. But you have just as much to give—and just as strong a need to receive.” Dominic frowned at the fire. “Would Constancia have wanted you to mourn her forever?”

  “Of course not—she was the most generous of women, and her last words to me were that I should go forth and live. But knowing she would approve doesn’t mean that my heart is capable of obeying.”

  “You and Constancia were together for many years. When you first met, did you feel as if you’d never love again if you lost her?”

  “I…I don’t know.” Kyle frowned. “I’ve never thought about that. I suppose not.”

  Dominic said nothing, letting his point speak for itself. Kyle tried to compare how he felt about Troth with what he’d felt for Constancia in the first year or two of their liaison, but it was impossible. When he thought of Constancia, ten years of shared experiences were woven together into the profound love he’d felt for her at the end.

  Besides, according to Dom he probably shouldn’t try to compare his feelings for the two women. “You’re saying it’s too early to decide that I can never love Troth as much as I loved Constancia. But even if that’s true, it doesn’t take into account Troth’s wishes. She was the one who decided it was time for her to leave.”

  “Very well, let’s take her wishes into account. What is Troth’s deepest desire?”

  “For acceptance,” Kyle said without hesitation. “A sense of belonging that she doesn’t think she’ll find here. A week after we came to Dornleigh she overheard a conversation between me and Wrexham at his most narrow-minded, and she was on her way to the Great North Road half an hour later. I managed to persuade her to return, but I think the incident convinced her that there was no hope of a lasting relationship.”

  “So battered and bruised, metaphorically if not physically, she decided it was time to part. But if she’s half as miserable as you are, it may be worth making one last try. Love seldom falls neatly into one’s lap. Usually it must be won the hard way.”

  Kyle said haltingly, “I don’t know if I have the courage to try and fail.”

  “Would fa
ilure be harder than wondering forever if you might have been able to have a true marriage with Troth? She is unique.”

  “According to you, that would be true of any woman.”

  “Touché. All people are unique, but some are more unique than others. You’ll never find another woman like Troth.”

  He knew that, but it didn’t mean that he had the right to keep her. “You asked what Troth wants. What do you want, Dom?”

  “Fifty more years of what I have now,” his brother said promptly. “Meriel, my children and someday grandchildren, the knowledge that what I do as a landowner and magistrate makes a real difference to the people of Warfield and Shropshire. I’m a country squire at heart, Kyle. You’ll need more to hold your attention, but politics should do the trick nicely. A chance for you to do the right thing on a larger scale.”

  His brother understood him well—sitting in the House of Lords and helping to shape the destiny of his homeland was one part of his inheritance that he’d always looked forward to. “Remember how I promised you Bradshaw Manor if you’d take my place with my mad fiancée?”

  “It’s not something I’d forget, since your crackbrained scheme changed my life.”

  “I intended to give you Bradshaw anyhow. I’d always planned on that, since it was the only piece of property I owned outright.”

  Dominic’s brows arched. “When we were boys I assumed that you’d sign over a middling-size estate someday, but we were at loggerheads for so long I decided you’d changed your mind. But if you did intend to give me Bradshaw Manor, why the devil didn’t you do it sooner instead of leaving me bored in London for years?”

  Kyle smiled faintly. “I kept hoping you’d use your freedom to do something interesting, like travel to China.”

  Dominic laughed. “That was your dream, not mine. Amazing to think how many years I envied you for being born first. But I was the lucky one, wasn’t I? I grew up without the constant pressure you had to endure.”

  Wrexham had closely monitored his heir’s studies and behavior, personally wielding the whip when Kyle didn’t live up to the earl’s standards. It had been difficult, yet Kyle had borne the pain stoically. He’d also taken pride in the fact that sometimes he’d been able to deflect his father’s ire from Dominic. As the elder, he’d considered that his duty, and he’d always done his duty.

  Dominic said thoughtfully, “I’ve sometimes wondered—if I’d been born first, would I be you and you’d be me? I mean, would I have been the responsible twin, while you were the rebellious one? Or are the differences between us so innate that our temperaments would be the same even if we’d been born in reverse order?”

  “Damned if I know, Dom. And trying to work that out will undoubtedly give me a headache tonight.”

  “Any headaches you have will be from brandy.” Dominic got to his feet, smothering a yawn. “Which is putting me to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Thanks for coming,” Kyle said quietly.

  Dominic briefly rested a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “You can also think yourself into a headache wondering about Troth. Perhaps it would be simplest just to ask yourself if you’re better off with her, or without her.”

  After his brother left, Kyle set aside his brandy, no longer interested in drinking himself into oblivion. Dominic’s last question was no help. Though Kyle might be better off with Troth than without her, the reverse was not true.

  What had his first year or so with Constancia been like? There had been erotic intoxication, of course, and not only because he’d been a virgin and she was a courtesan exquisitely skilled in pleasing men. Their lovemaking had always contained a powerful emotional element that went beyond the intense physical pleasure, though it had taken him a decade to recognize how deeply he had loved her.

  Dominic was right that he shouldn’t compare his mature love for Constancia with the turbulent feelings he had for Troth. With Constancia, there had been a deep sense of peace and belonging. Though he desired Troth as he’d never thought he could desire a woman again, the foundation of the relationship wasn’t peace, but a raw neediness that he hated to acknowledge because it might destroy them both. He would come to despise himself for his weakness, while she would despise him for clinging to her so desperately. That did not fit any sane definition of love.

  But if he was too much a coward to explore the possibilities with Troth now, he’d never forgive himself.

  More than that, he wanted her—wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything or anyone in his life. Winning her would not be easy; it might not even be possible.

  The haze of illness and depression that had paralyzed him had finally lifted. Perhaps he was not so needy, not so desperate, that he would inevitably drive Troth away.

  There was only one way to find out.

  Chapter 38

  Melrose

  The Scottish border country

  “I’ve come home, Father.” Troth laughed aloud as the wind caught her cloak, whipping it out like a dark banner as she explored the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. She felt deep satisfaction at fulfilling the promise she had made on her father’s grave.

  The abbey was one of the childhood haunts he’d described to her, and she could almost feel him beside her. Repeated battles between Scots and English had turned the religious foundation into roofless, battered buildings where grazing sheep trimmed the grass to velvety elegance. The setting made her feel like the heroine of one of the Gothic romances she’d read at Warfield.

  Somewhere in the ruins, there should be a villain waiting to assault the innocent maiden. At the last minute, just before the villain could have his evil way with her, the hero would appear and prove his love in manly combat. Of course, Troth was no innocent maiden, and she was quite capable of overcoming any villains without aid, but being rescued by a handsome, adoring hero certainly had romantic appeal.

  She paused respectfully at the grave of Sir Walter Scott, who’d lived nearby and been buried here the year before. Her father had known the writer as a boy. During the winter she’d devoured Scott’s dashing historical tales of Scottish love and adventure. Scott had chosen a pleasant place to rest his bones for eternity, though today it seemed devoid of either villains or heroes.

  Or was it? Through an empty window she caught a glimpse of a dark-clothed male figure exploring the ruins. The fellow rather reminded her of Kyle, but many men had done that on her trip north. She was haunted by the ghost of a man who wasn’t dead.

  If he were here, what role would he play, villain or hero? Smiling at her fancies, she reversed course to avoid the stranger, preferring solitude. She didn’t need company. For now, it was enough to be in Scotland. There had been the usual curious stares at her odd appearance, but Scots had a deep natural courtesy, and most became downright friendly after they heard her accent.

  Deciding to look at the river that ran behind the abbey, she left the church—and almost jumped out of her skin when she found herself on the verge of colliding with the other sightseer. Dear gods, it was Kyle!

  She stared, heart pounding. “My lord?”

  He fell back a step. “In person. Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Getting a grip on her imagination, she said coolly, “Have you come to retrieve your carriage?”

  “I’ve come to see you.” His intent gaze was disquieting.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It’s not hard to track a coach with a crest on the doors, especially since you once mentioned that your father’s family lived near Melrose. As to finding you here, the owner of the inn where you’re staying said you were walking to the abbey, so I thought I’d follow the path here myself. It’s a good hike.”

  “But why?” she said helplessly.

  “To talk to you.” He scanned the ruins. “Are you ready to return to Melrose, or do you wish to spend longer here?”

  “I’ve seen enough for today.” It would be impossible to resume sight-seeing now that Kyle had appeared.

  He
offered his arm, and she automatically accepted, unable to prevent herself from enjoying his company. After they’d walked a stretch of path in silence, he said, “Your Scottish accent is already stronger. Is the country living up to your expectations?”

  “It is indeed.” She raised her head, feeling the fresh breeze on her face. “In a triumph of breeding over upbringing, I love the cool air and the ever-changing skies. It’s like…like coming home. The shadows and light and hills are exactly as I dreamed. I feel as if I must have lived here in other lifetimes.”

  “Perhaps you have.”

  “Some Buddhism has definitely rubbed off on you.”

  “I think it has. Certainly some places call to our hearts. It was like that for me when I saw my folio of Chinese prints. I felt that China was part of me, and that I’d never be happy unless I visited there.”

  “Your passion had the advantage of making you less narrow-minded than most men of your class.” She glanced at him, remembering their journey to Hoshan. “Did you want to stay in China?”

  “If I’d had the choice, I’d have become a China trader like your father, spending most of my time in Macao and Canton,” he said thoughtfully. “However, since my responsibilities are in Britain, I’m reasonably content now that I’ve had my visit.”

  “If you’ve learned how to be content, the last year hasn’t been wasted. When I met you, the word ‘restless’ is what came to mind.”

  His gaze became intent again. “The last year has definitely not been wasted, difficult though it was at times.”

  Wanting to avoid deep discussions, she lifted her skirts and hopped a puddle left from an earlier shower. “It’s odd that this part of Scotland is called the Lowlands when it’s hillier than much of England.”