Whirlwind Wedding

'Even if you are willing to live with such an arrangement,' she continued in that same flat voice, 'I am not. I want children in my life.'

He somehow found his voice. 'You just said you didn't.'

'No. I said I cannot have children with you.. . but I could with someone else. It was my child with you who died.'

Everything inside him went rigid. Surely he'd heard her incorrectly. 'Elizabeth, you don't know what you're saying. You cannot possibly mean-'

'I know exactly what I'm saying.' Lifting her chin a notch, she regarded him with uncharacteristic coolness. 'While I fancied being a duchess, I never dreamed that the title would cost me having children. It's not a price I'm willing to pay.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' he bit out. 'You had no wish to become a duchess.'

She raised her brows. 'I'm not a fool, Austin. What woman wouldn't want to be a duchess?'

Her words settled on him like a blanket of ice, freezing him to the bone. He didn't want to believe what she was saying, but she was clearly serious.

He was stunned. Numb. Bringing his hand to his chest, he rubbed where his heart should be. And felt nothing. All his newfound hopes and dreams slipped away, blowing like ashes in the wind. She didn't love him. Didn't want him. Didn't want his children. Or their marriage. She wanted to share her life with someone else… anyone else. Just not him.

The numbness suddenly fled and warring emotions pummeled him. Disillusionment. Anger. And a hurt that cut so deep he felt sliced in two. Jesus. What a fool I've been.

He forced himself to push the hurt aside, to concentrate on the anger, letting it pump through him, heating his frozen veins.

'I believe I'm beginning to understand' he said in a voice so raw he barely recognized it. 'In spite of your protestations to the contrary, you actually had designs on gaining a title. Now you wish to end our marriage, seemingly out of concern for me, but in truth you want to be free to marry someone else so you can bear children. His children.'

Her face paled at his tone, but her gaze remained steady on his. 'Yes. I want our marriage annulled.'

Fury and gut-wrenching hurt collided in him, rocking his foundation. God damn it, what a superb actress his wife was! Her concern, her caring… it was all a facade. All this time he'd thought her sincere and trustworthy, innocent and guileless, and most laughable of all, unselfish. She was no better than the fortune-hunting females who had dogged his heels for years. He could not believe she had the nerve, the gall, to stand in front of him and claim she wanted to end their marriage for his happiness when what she really wanted was another husband for herself.

But what fueled his rage to the boiling point was the thought of her with another man. That image filled him with such violence, he nearly choked. Yet he welcomed the rage, for without it, the raw hurt would simply overwhelm him.

'Look at me,' he ordered in a voice that dripped ice.

When she continued to stare toward the window, he grabbed her chin and forced her head around. 'Look at me, damn it.' She met his gaze with a cool detachment that infuriated him. There was nothing in her expression to indicate she was the woman he'd made love with only hours ago. How had she hidden this side of herself from him? How the hell had she fooled him so completely? It took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to shake her.

'You missed your calling, my dear. You could have been superb on the stage. You certainly had me convinced that you were all things good and decent. But clearly you are nothing more than a common schemer and accomplished liar. Your refusal to be a proper wife to me is certainly ample grounds for me to rid myself of you.' He dropped her chin as if she'd scorched him.

Her face turned to chalk. 'You'll agree to an annulment?'

'No, Elizabeth. I shall demand an annulment-as soon as I've ascertained that you are not already carrying my child. For the next two months you shall reside at my estate just outside London. That should be sufficient time to determine if you are pregnant or not.'

Stark fear slashed across her features. She obviously hadn't considered that the damage might have already been done. 'And if I'm not?'

'Then our marriage will end.'

'What if I am… with child?'

'Then we'll be forced to endure this sham marriage. Whether you choose to stay or leave after the baby's birth-'

'I could never abandon my child.'

A bitter laugh escaped him. 'Really? You're certainly willing to abandon your commitment to our marriage. Given that fact, I'm not sure what you are capable of.'

Something flashed in her eyes, and for a moment he thought she meant to argue, but she merely pressed her lips together.

'One more thing,' he said. 'I shall expect you to behave with the utmost propriety during the next two months. You will speak of this to no one and you will do nothing to bring shame upon me or my family. Do you understand? I'll not have my wife bearing some other man's child.'

Again he thought he detected a flash of raw pain in her eyes, but she merely lifted her chin and said 'I will not be unfaithful.'

'You're damned right, you won't. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get dressed. I'll make the necessary arrangements for your stay in the country.'

'What about me helping you find William?'

'If you see anything else, send me a message. I shall conduct my own investigation from here. Without you.'

Striding across the room, he opened the adjoining door to her bedchamber. She stood still for several heartbeats, her gaze riveted on his, her expression unreadable. Then she swiftly crossed the room and walked into her chamber. Austin closed the door after her and very deliberately turned the lock into place. The click reverberated through the sudden silence.

Alone in his chamber, he braced his fists against the door and closed his eyes against the emotions battling inside him, stabbing him, consuming him, overwhelming him until he wanted to scream. Half of him was furious. Coldly, darkly furious.

The other half of him hurt so badly he nearly fell to his knees. There was an empty hole in his chest where his heart had beaten only minutes before. Before Elizabeth had torn it out with her bare hands and sliced it in two.

Before he'd met her, he'd been only half a man, existing yet not living. She'd made him whole with her sweetness and innocence, laughter and love… but they didn't really exist. He'd never thought a woman would want him for himself, but he'd believed Elizabeth had. He'd never thought he'd fall in love, but he had with a heart and soul he'd thought gone forever.

Walking to the window, he pulled the curtain aside, and looked with unseeing eyes out the window at a world suddenly gone bleak.

She'd made him love her.

And it was all an illusion.

Until Elizabeth, he'd never carried around hopes and dreams for his future. He'd been consumed by the secrets he carried inside and had moved from one meaningless affair to another, from one club to the next, from one boring party to another.

But she'd changed him. She'd turned him from that cynical, detached lonely man into someone with hope for the future… a future filled with happiness, a loving wife, and fine, healthy children.

And now all his newly found hopes and dreams were gone. Vanished. Shattered. She'd said she couldn't bear to lose someone else she loved-yet she was willing to lose him. And that left no doubt what her feelings toward him were.

God Almighty, if he didn't hurt so damn bad if he wasn't so racked with pain and anguish, he could almost laugh. The 'incomparable, invulnerable' Duke of Bradford brought to his knees by a woman… a woman he'd thought