Chapter 27

27

It brokeCalliope’s heart to see Violet’s wound, even though it wasn’t serious. It could have been so much worse!

She admired how the girls had managed to defend themselves, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gone too far lending Violet those books. If, perhaps, Nathaniel was right, and she should stop and make sure the people who were dear to her were safe, too.

Growing up with brothers, she’d never had anyone vulnerable in her life who needed her protection. They’d always been so strong, and she’d needed to be stronger just to catch up with them.

But not everyone was as resilient as the Seaton brothers. And she wasn’t independent anymore, whether she liked it or not.

The two other thugs had managed to run away, while the man who had fallen through into the cellar was dead. So they had no answers.

Later that night, after the Seatons’ physician had treated Violet, Calliope and Nathaniel were talking in their bedroom.

“I died ten deaths when I saw her bleeding,” Nathaniel croaked, staring into the fireplace with the crackling coal grate, his fingers mindlessly chipping at the paint on the mantel.

Calliope’s eyes burned with tears. She’d come to love his sisters in the short time she’d lived with them. “I know. Did it make you think about your mother?”

He tensed, as rigid as a tree. “Yes.”

His voice was strange, swollen, and a tear rolled down his cheek. It made her chest ache to see him like that.

“If anything happened to them, I’d never be able to live with myself.”

The confession was like a boulder that sank into Calliope’s soul. She’d brought this on them, on these beautiful girls. On Nathaniel. The intruders had surely come because of her.

“Neither would I,” she whispered, standing up from her seat by the fireplace and moving closer to gently brush the tears from Nathaniel’s face.

Which meant she needed to be more careful and more considerate. Perhaps, with their enemy so bold as to send men to kidnap Nathaniel’s sisters, it was wiser to lie low for a while. And Violet needed care.

“I won’t leave her side until next Wednesday,” she said.

Nathaniel turned to her, his eyes glaring with unspoken fury. “Indeed, you will not. The investigation must be over now altogether. We put my sisters through enough danger!”

Cold shock washed over Calliope. “No, we cannot stop looking for my brother. Punish me! Do not punish him!”

Nathaniel closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “You’re right. Your brother still needs help. Well then.” He looked at her coldly. “I will resume the investigation. You may no longer accompany me at all. You must stay at home like I asked. You must not go to Thorne. If there’s any investigation before Wednesday, I will do it alone.”

“Nathaniel…!”

“And if you disobey me, I will be so heartless as to stop helping altogether. I must look out for my sisters’ safety—and yours.”

Fury rose in Calliope’s chest. “This is not what we agreed on when we married!”

“Exactly. That can be said for both of us. Will you promise me?”

She swallowed hard. It would be difficult for her. If she really wanted to, she could escape and continue her investigation. But there was truth in his words. She was responsible for this. For Violet being hurt, for Poppy almost being kidnapped, for men breaking into their home.

He needed her to stay put. She would give him what he needed, even if it made her feel broken.

“Yes,” she said, the word like gravel in her throat.

Over the next few days, Nathaniel came to her, intent on getting her pregnant, but didn’t sleep with her in the same bed. It was strange…to be angry with him, to feel guilty, and yet to want him like mad, unable to resist his lips, his arms, his cock. They spoke with their bodies—that they still needed each other, craved each other like air—and yet, they did not talk.

Clearly, Nathaniel wasn’t getting much sleep. He had dark circles under his eyes, hollow cheekbones. Seeing him like that, Calliope felt the worry grow in her stomach. She kept her promise and stayed at home, caring for Violet—who was more excited by her success than bothered by her wound. Following her promise to Nathaniel, she had asked him to please let her pay for the repairs to the floorboards, given that the men that had caused the damage had come because of her.

Nathaniel shivered at that, but instead of yelling at her, he simply nodded. He didn’t argue. He didn’t get angry. It was as though he looked at her from behind ten castle walls, shielded and protected.

It would have been better if he had fought with her. Somehow, this silent compliance was worse.

It was as though he’d given up because that break-in had finally showed him who she truly was. That he didn’t want her as a person anymore, just as a vessel to create the heir he needed.

As she looked at the empty place in her bed where Nathaniel used to lie, so happy and so gorgeously hers only a few days ago, her heart was breaking.

Was she nothing but a womb for him?

She ached to ask him that but was terrified of his answer. What if he’d say yes, she was? What if he’d wonder why she was surprised since that was exactly what they had agreed on from the beginning?

Would he think she was silly to have…what? Cared for him? Started to feel like he was essential to her very existence?

The thought was still like a knife in her belly when the day finally came to see the man Harvey had mentioned—the one who may have helped press-gang Spencer. Calliope and Nathaniel climbed into the Seaton carriage to drive to Portside. It was as though he was with her…but also not.

As the carriage rolled down the street, Calliope noticed a man on a horse who seemed to follow them for a while before disappearing a few streets before they arrived in Portside. It was probably nothing, she told herself. But unease washed through her in a chilly wave.

Calliope’s heart beat fast as she and Nathaniel walked through Portside, the room packed with men drinking and yelling. She stared with fascination as two women dressed in men’s trousers fought each other. Respect rose in her, and she wondered how it would feel to stand in that ring, facing an opponent, and fight…like Nathaniel had fought for years to support his sisters.

When they reached the owner, Harvey shrugged and looked at them with a somber face. “You just missed ’im.”

“Just?” demanded Calliope. “When did he leave?”

“Saw a boy come up to him, and then ’e rushed out not a minute ago.”

Calliope and Nathaniel exchanged a glance.

“Goddamn it,” cursed Nathaniel, and he and Calliope darted through the crowd, pushing people out of the way. They ran outside, frantically looking around. Nausea rose in Calliope’s stomach when she got a whiff of stale urine. There was no one outside.

Nathaniel looked at her and sighed. “Come on, Calliope, let’s go home. We will try again next week.”

“We could go to Thorne—” Calliope started, but one look from Nathaniel and she closed her mouth.

“I am doing all that I can, Calliope,” he rasped. “I am at my limit. Men broke into my house and hurt my sister… They almost kidnapped Poppy. And you want to dive even deeper into the criminal world of London?”

Calliope bit her lower lip. All true, and yet, Spencer was somewhere out there, probably fighting the French or the Americans.

The need to act, to do something, was instinctive for her. Being made to sit in one place felt like Nathaniel tying her down with a rope.

And yet, she wanted him and the girls to be safe. Seeing him worried, afraid, withdrawn was worse than her own discomfort. She was no longer angry with him. He was in her blood. He was in her soul. She wanted to make him happy, more like the golden lion he had been when she’d met him at the Royal Navy ball.

She wanted to see that glimmer of flirtation in his rakish eyes again.

And so, even if it went against everything she was, she nodded. “You’re right. We’ll wait till next Wednesday.”

After a curt agreement from Nathaniel, Calliope continued working on the house.

He agreed that having a bigger staff meant increased safety, and so Calliope hired a trained butler, a coachman, and two more footmen, making Joshua the underbutler and increasing his wages to reflect his promotion. Two chambermaids joined the household to help with housekeeping and free up Hazel and the twins from housework. A governess moved in and started teaching the girls all those things they had missed.

Violet’s wound was not deep, and after some stitches, it healed well, restricting her only a little. But, as she cheerfully said, she didn’t need to use her arm to read.

It was Poppy who noticed a man observing their house the day after Calliope and Nathaniel missed the man at Portside.

Nathaniel sent the footmen to get rid of him, and the man ran away before they could reach him, disappearing in the streets.

To respect his wishes, Calliope didn’t break her promise to him to go to Thorne or do anything else for the investigation without him. She wanted to ease his fear and to make sure the girls were safe.

It was because of her they were in danger, because of her meddling that someone had their home under surveillance.

Even though it felt like she was tied to one place by a chain, she hoped she could repair her husband’s mood just as she repaired the house, and that he’d look at her with the adoration she’d seen before, on that one night full of stars and irises.

But her sacrifice didn’t seem to make a difference to Nathaniel. He was still angry with her…or afraid… He was withdrawn, still intent on keeping her away from the investigation, which she, like he had accepted her repairs, grudgingly accepted. But her lack of action made her miserable. Itching to do something for Spencer, she felt like she was in prison as she studied a shadow of a man who hid behind a large tree across the street. Every day since Poppy had first spotted him, the man was chased away, and every day, he returned, hiding behind a corner. Behind a parked carriage. Behind the bushes.

Watching.

It must be her passive waiting, but Calliope felt worse and worse every day. She felt nauseated, her breasts ached, and her nipples felt like they were being cut with glass every time something touched them. She was physically exhausted, even though she didn’t do much at all, besides talking to the girls, teaching Hazel to play the pianoforte, and making love to her husband.

They still came together like it was the only thing that connected them. Like bringing each other physical pleasure was their only way of communicating. She showed him how much she cared for him. For God’s sake, she cared enough to do the one thing she thought she’d never do.

Hide.

It must have been the following Monday that Calliope sat straight up, feeling cramps in her lower stomach in the middle of the night. Certain her courses had finally arrived, several days late, she stood up from the bed to search for the cloth pads she used monthly. Nathaniel, who for the first time in days had fallen asleep next to her, stirred and rose on his elbows as he blinked at her.

“Are you well?” he asked.

She turned to him, his long hair in a mess, his gorgeous face sleepy and so domestic…her heart ached. After her investigation was done, would they ever regain the happiness they used to share? Or would they just drift apart ever further, especially once she gave him an heir. Then he wouldn’t need her anymore—

She froze, her hand shooting to her lower belly. She looked between her thighs, expecting to see smears of blood…

Nothing.

She frowned.

She didn’t have her courses. They could still come. However, Nathaniel and she hadn’t missed a single night, except the night of the break-in, making love.

So, it was possible. Could she be…

“I may be pregnant…” she murmured, more to herself than to him. A jolt of happiness and joy shot through her like sunbeams.

He sat straight up, all sleepiness gone from his face, his muscled chest glowing in the blue moonlight falling through the windows. He stared at her stomach as if it were full of vipers.

That made her heart break all over again. Instead of the happiness she’d expected to see on his face—or even relief that it may be happening, that he may receive his inheritance—there was a look of pure terror.

“So soon?” he croaked out.

She swallowed, suddenly self-conscious, and picked up her dressing gown, wrapping it around herself.

“Yes, so soon.”

Still gloriously naked, he jumped from the bed like a lion and darted to the window. He carefully touched the curtain and looked at the street, then picked up his own dressing gown and shoved his arms through its sleeves.

“You wanted this, am I right?” she asked, feeling tears prickling the backs of her eyes.

His eyebrows were knotted, his eyes wide, his mouth a tight line.

Where was the joy of a soon-to-be father? The happiness on the face of the man whose wife may be growing a new life inside her?

“Of course I did,” he said without looking back at her.

But it didn’t sound at all like he did. He hadn’t looked into her eyes since the moment he’d heard the word “pregnant.”

She shouldn’t talk about it. Shouldn’t touch the very sensitive subject. They had enough unspoken secrets, promises neither of them wanted to keep, a paper-thin truce between them that could be broken forever with one wrong word.

And yet, her heart was full of Nathaniel, full of hope for their happiness, for the two of them—maybe for the three of them.

She should just keep her mouth shut.

“Then why aren’t you happy?” she blurted out.

Finally, he met her eyes—with a glare.

“Happy?” he snarled. “How can I be happy when—”

He cursed under his breath and closed his eyes, the powerful chest muscles rising in a deep breath. He pointed at the window. “There’s someone who surveyed my house for days. How can I be happy that he watches my pregnant wife and my three sisters? How can I be happy if they can invade my own house again? And now there may be an unborn child to protect as well.”

Her throat contracted. “But I haven’t gone and done anything by myself, just like you asked me. I didn’t go to Blackmore like I wanted to. I didn’t even breathe in the direction of Portside. I—”

Don’t say it, Calliope. Don’t say it. There would be no coming back from this.

“You what?” he barked.

It was probably that tone that did it. That fury in his voice, the contempt, the resentment. She knew they had their differences, the big questions between them.

And she snapped. The dam of unhappiness, of tiredness, of anger at him for confining her, and at herself for obeying him, pushed against her resolve like storm-roiled water crashing against a dam.

“I can’t do this anymore!” she yelled. “I stopped looking for my brother for you, so that you know I’m safe and to keep the girls safe. Do you think your forbidding me to leave would stop me if I really wanted to go? But I’m suffocating, Nathaniel! I’m suffocating!”

He narrowed his eyes in confusion, in pain. “But I have done the same for you! I have allowed you to do your investigation. I have allowed you to come with me to Portside despite thugs attacking you! Despite my sister being wounded and scared. Despite someone watching our house every day! And what about your books?”

Calliope frowned. “My books?”

“Yes. Your books. The ones about private inquiries. Aren’t they what put all those ideas in Violet’s head? Poppy and she were excited about the thug who followed you, thrilled to help you disguise yourself! And because of that, instead of running away and looking for help, they decided to fight three grown men alone!”

Tears welled in her eyes. The worst of it was, he was right. She was wrong for him. Wrong for his sisters. She thought he was one man who wouldn’t reject her independent spirit, her odd ideas.

She should have never opened herself up to him. She should have given him her body but not her heart.

Too late. He was already in her very bloodstream. Just like the girls. But it didn’t mean they had a future.

Calliope shook her head slowly. “We will never be happy, Nathaniel, will we?”

He glared at her, angular jaw muscles working.

“We’re opposite,” she said. “I need freedom and independence. You need to know your family is safe. I will never be able to give that to you, no matter how much I might try.”

He swallowed hard. “What are you talking about? This will all be over once we find Spencer. I’ll keep you safe until then if you just hold on and stay put a little longer.”

It was time to tell him the whole truth.

She slowly shook her head, nausea rising in her stomach. “It won’t, Nathaniel.”

The concern on his face was so sharp it looked like horror. “Why not?”

“Because I have always dreamed of running my own sleuth agency. And once I find Spencer, I will start one.”

He crossed the distance between them in three long strides and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“When we agreed to marry, I asked you for freedom. Once I give you an heir or an heiress, you promised me I would be able to do whatever I wanted.”

“Within reason.”

“Reason being, I won’t have other men in my life.”

“Yes. Reason is also not putting yourself in constant danger!” he roared.

She freed herself and stepped back. “I am prepared for danger. I’m smart enough to avoid it, if I can, because I take calculated risks. I can protect myself. And men underestimate women. I will also hire other sleuths who will help. But this is my dream, Nathaniel. I’ve wanted this for years. And very soon, finally, I will have the freedom to do it.”

He shook his head. “I never agreed to this. You should have told me. Had I known, I’d never have married you.”

There they were, the words that could not be unsaid, the discussion that could not be forgotten. He had stabbed a knife straight into her heart.

She nodded. She was so stupid. Had she not fallen in love with him, this wouldn’t have hurt so much.

Fallen in love… The sensation, the realization was as crystal clear as a mirror. She loved her husband. She loved him enough to go against her instincts and sacrifice her true, independent nature for him. Try to make herself someone she’d never be.

An obedient wife.

“I agree,” she said, holding her neck straight. “We should have never married. I will never be a woman sitting behind four walls, hiding. And you can never support me in my dream.”

He glared at her, his breath accelerating with every second. He looked like he was a cauldron of water coming closer and closer to the boiling point.

She saw the moment something within him snapped. He darted to the bellpull and tugged at it.

“That’s it,” he barked. “You are forbidden to go anywhere near the docks, do you hear me?”

“Not this again, Nathaniel. We agreed.”

He pulled at the cord again several times and looked at her like he was in pain. “Will you obey me or not?”

“Of course not. We’re so close to finding out what happened to Spencer. We’ll meet that man on Wednesday, in two days—”

“That’s it.” He threw her chemise into her hands. Panic seemed to be radiating from him like body heat. “Dress. We’re leaving.”

Calliope clutched the chemise to her stomach. “Leaving? Leaving to where?”

He charged out of the room and into the hallway and yelled, “Abigail! Joshua!” so that the walls shook.

There were footsteps pounding from downstairs. Joshua appeared at first, rumpled and barely able to open his eyes. “Your Grace, is everything all right?”

“Go get Abigail to dress the duchess, please, and pack her things. Right this minute. Then come and dress me.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” Joshua ran downstairs.

“And tell the new coachman to get the carriage ready!” he roared after him.

“Nathaniel! Where are you taking me?” Calliope’s stomach twisted in helpless rage.

Nathaniel took her by the elbow and dragged her back into her bedroom. He locked the door and stood with his arms crossed, his back pressed against the door.

“I’m taking you to Kelford.”