The door was open, the children all sitting on the bed, their gazes riveted to their sister who hummed and sang and swayed with her back to him. Ethan saw him first and held a finger to his lips, already shushing before Darius had uttered one word.
Eliza turned.
Darius almost died.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The smile his wife wore, the rosy hue on her cheeks and joy in her entire countenance had Darius stepping back, such was the blow to the region where his heart lay under its layers of blackened sin.
Then she stepped towards him and his gaze dropped to her arms, to the bundle cradled against her chest. This time when he stepped back, the movement was most deliberate. Her smile faltered, faded, fell away as she hugged to herself what looked alarmingly like a baby.
What had he done? He was an idiot and had fallen for it all.
She had tricked him, connived and deceived. As soon as it was too late, his back turned, she had no qualms about revealing another of her many ruses. How could he not have seen it coming? His turbulent thoughts went back to the night when they truly became husband and wife.
He’d been in her bedroom but she had come to him.
She had been wearing nothing but her gown.
He had been furious and vulnerable and then she had swooped and put the final seal on Darius’s freedom, his future.
Their future.
Why?
Because he was a bastard and so therefore would have no trouble being cuckolded in this way? Did she think he would silently raise another man’s child? His brother’s child no less?
He’d been duped in the biggest way but how had he not noticed there was a baby involved in their mess? Her stomach hadn’t been marked as though she’d carried a child, her skin soft and tight and smooth. Had she secreted it away in the village until she’d said her vows? He’d discovered her scandal and had dismissed it as fodder for the gossips with little truth in it but when he stared at that little baby’s face, her nose and chin identical to that of his and his brother’s, the truth dawned. The babe couldn’t be more than a few months old. The Duke of Penfold had disappeared in the last few months. The scandal. Had Eliza killed her father so he wouldn’t tell of his daughter’s bastard?
His mouth worked but it was several moments before he could speak. “You tricked me,” he murmured, suddenly—strangely—hurt, confused, betrayed. Emotions he hadn’t let himself feel for the longest of times. Why had she married him then? Why not Harold? Had it all been a ploy so he wouldn’t retaliate against his brother and father? His mind was a cyclone of turbulent thoughts but not one made sense.
Eliza shook her head, reached for him with a free hand.
He retreated. She’d settled for a rich bastard to hide her disgrace. He’d known there had to be more to the story than she had told him but this? She could have married his brother when she’d discovered she was increasing. Why hadn’t she done that? She had obviously been his mistress but for how long? Was she their puppet after all? Their plaything? Nothing made sense.
As Darius backed from the room, horror showing all over his face since it was all he felt at that moment, his chest heavy and his mouth dry, Eliza passed the infant to Gabriella and came after him.
Darius was faster. He didn’t stop, simply threw the words over his shoulder as he ran down the stairs. “I suppose you are going to claim that Harold forced himself on you? That you had no choice in any of that either?”
He flew down each step but as he reached the bottom, Benny stopped him with a solid hand to his chest. “Where are you going?”
“How could you let that female bring that child here? I left you in charge and this is how you carry on?”
“You think that baby had any choice in being left here on our doorstep? You would run from your own sister? Throw her out into the cold?”
Sister? That certainly stopped him, gave him reason to pause. He wanted to listen but the blood roared in his ears and cheeks and he needed to get away from there. From her. Just another in a long line to betray him in the worst way. He’d thought they might have a future. He thought they had something.
“Darius?” Eliza’s breathless voice came from halfway up the stair. “I don’t know what conclusions you are drawing from this situation, but I assure you, you have them incorrect.”
“What conclusions could I draw, madam? Tell me you did not give birth to my brother’s child and then attempt to cuckold me after the fact.” He then said to Benny, “That would make the child my niece, not my sister.”
Eliza reached his side and crossed her arms over her chest. “You ninny, she’s your sister because she is one of your father’s bast—” Her cheeks coloured. “One of your father’s illegitimate children.”
“It’s not yours? Yours and Harold’s?”
She paled but then her spine straightened and she pinned him with a glare. Was she likely to slap him? “How dare you? Not in this life or any other would I ever allow that toad to touch me.”
“Again,” Darius reminded her, though why he did it he wasn’t sure. He tried to think back to the night he and Eliza had finally come together. He remembered how gloriously tight she had been as he’d entered her but then thinking had become too hard as he’d thrust and buried himself in her heat. He didn’t remember any physical barrier but then he’d never bedded a virgin before.
God, his brain throbbed.
“Once was more than enough to ruin my life. Why would I carry on an…an…affair with him? If my feelings lay in his vicinity, why would
