Page 85 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

She wanted a child of her own. A family. Things that he had always known he didn’t deserve. If he gave her those things, he would hurt her more.

And a family…he didn’t deserve a family.

Baron Lorthey was wrong that he was the reason Harry died, but he had seen too much pain and suffering to ever be free from it. He had made bad decisions that had caused the death of good men, and the weight of those deaths now sat on his soul.

William, he would do everything for, but future children needed more than a father who was plagued with nightmares. They deserved more than a father incapable of defending them the way they ought to be defended.

He had almost lost William. Where was the proof that he could protect and defend?

His Goliath now was not fatherhood but rather his own weakness.

None of this was fair. He couldn’t be blessed with a family, with Jessamine, when he had done so little to deserve the honor.

She touched his arm, no doubt sensing his stillness. “Andrew?”

He drew back from her. The empty space in his chest swelled to encompass all of him.

“This is a marriage of convenience,” he said as coldly as he could. She had taught him warmth, and now he remembered all her lessons. “That was what we agreed upon, Jessamine.”

She stared up at him, a furrow between her brows. He desperately wanted to smooth it with his fingers, but he had just told her that he must keep his distance, in as few words as possible. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I…” He bit his tongue before he could tell her the turmoil on his mind. This was not her burden to bear. “We both knew what this would be when we entered our arrangement, and it can be no more. I hope it’s enough for you.”

She retracted her hand, hurt flaring in her eyes. She always showed every emotion in those pretty brown eyes of hers, every feeling trapped in amber. He could have stared into them forever. “What about you?” she demanded. “Is it enough for you?”

Andrew clenched his jaw. He had wanted too much and too far. That was his error, and now he must pay for it. “It has to be,” he said, and left the nursery before he could do or say anything more that he would regret.

The last thing he saw before he closed the door was the pain on her face like an open wound, and the sickening knowledge that he had been the one to put it there.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dawn came and went in a burst of gray light that faded into color. Jessamine sat with William, watching his steady breathing. The fear from the previous night had dissolved into a deeper sort of hurt, the kind that sank into her bones and settled there to live indefinitely.

This is a marriage of convenience.

I hope it’s enough for you.

It had not been enough for her for a long, long time. Even longer than she had realized. Since before they had kissed for the first time. And now, she had come to rely on him more than she had ever relied on another person.

Everyone in her life left her, one way or the other. Her mother, her father, her aunt. Her sister, in a way—having a child was not the same, but it did change things—and now her husband.

“You won’t leave me, will you?” she murmured to the sleeping infant.

He was so much larger now than he had been a few weeks ago, putting on weight so solidly that she felt as though if she only watched him long enough, she would see him grow.

“I will have you for years. You will always be Rebecca’s, but you are also mine,” she added.

He didn’t so much as stir.

The door opened, and Lucy crept in, a small bandage around her head.

“The doctor said I should be fine so long as I don’t move anything heavy for a day or two,” she whispered, her face creasing. “I am so sorry, Your Grace. He was in my care, and I failed him and you. I understand if you would rather someone else take over my duties.”

She hung her head, and Jessamine realized that Lucy, too, had come to care for William.

He had had so much impact on so many people’s lives, and he slumbered in ignorance.

“You could never have foreseen this,” Jessamine said, shaking her head and returning her gaze to William’s face. “We could all blame ourselves, but we are not responsible for what happened. Are you all right?”