The prospect of eventually breaking his betrothal to Amelia did not trouble his conscience, for he harbored no illusions as to her reasons for agreeing to marry him. She was attracted to him, he knew, but she was marrying him because her father wanted to be allied with the nobility.
For two blissful, magnificent weeks, Katherine and he had managed to keep their growing love a secret; two weeks of stolen moments alone, of quiet walks through the countryside, of shared laughter and dreams of the future.
At the end of that time, Charles could no longer put off the required meeting with the Dowager Duchess of Claremont. He wanted to marry Katherine.
He was prepared for the duchess to object, for although his family was an old and noble one, he was an untitled younger son. Still, such marriages took place often enough, and he had expected her to put up a token argument and then capitulate because Katherine wanted this union as badly as he did. He had not expected her to be almost demented with wrath, or to call him a ' dissolute opportunist ' and a ' corrupt, lecherous degenerate. ' He hadn't expected her to rail about his ancestors ' and his promiscuous behavior, or to call his forebears ' irresponsible madmen, one and all. '
But most of all, he had not expected her to swear that if Katherine married him, she would disown her and cut her off without a cent. Such things simply weren't done. But when he left the house that day, Charles knew the woman would do exactly as she threatened. He returned to his lodgings and spent the night in alternate states of rage and despair. By morning, he knew that he could not - would not - marry Katherine, for although he was willing to try to earn an honest living, with his own two hands if need be, he could not bear to see his proud, beautiful Katherine brought low because of him. He would not cause her to be cut off from her family and publicly shunned by society.
Even if he thought he could make up with her for the disgrace she would endure, he knew he could never let her become a common house - drudge. She was young and idealistic and in love with him, but she was also accustomed to beautiful gowns and servants doing her every bidding. If he had to work for a living he could not possibly give her those things. Katherine had never washed a dish, scrubbed a floor, or pressed a shirt, and he would not see her reduced to doing these things because she had been foolish enough to love him.
When he was finally able to arrange a brief, clandestine meeting with her the following day, Charles told her of his decision. Katherine argued that the luxuries of life meant nothing to her; she pleaded with him to take her to America, where it was said any man could make a decent living if he was only willing to work for it.
Unable to endure her tears or his anguish, Charles had gruffly told her that her ideas were foolish, that she could never survive life in America. She had looked at him as if he was afraid to work for a living, and then she had brokenly accused him of wanting her dowry, not her - exactly as her grandmother had told her he did.
To Charles, who was unselfishly sacrificing his happiness for her, her accusation had cut like a knife. ' Believe that if you wish, ' he had snapped, forcing himself to turn away from her before he lost his resolve and eloped with her that very day. He started for the door, but he could not bear to have her think he had only wanted her money. ' Katherine, ' he said, pausing without turning. ' I beg you not to believe that of me. '
'I don't, ' she whispered brokenly. Neither did she believe he would put an end to their hopeless, tormented longing for each other by marrying Amelia the following week. But that was exactly what Charles did. It was the first entirely unselfish act of his life.
Katherine attended his wedding with her grandpa and for as long as he lived, Charles would never mother, forget the look of betrayal in Katherine's eyes when he finished pledging his life to another woman.
Two months later, she married an Irish physician and left with him for America. She did it, Charles knew, because she was furious with her grandmother and because she could not bear to remain in England near Charles and his new wife. And she did it to prove to him, in the only way she knew how, that her love for him could have survived anything - including life in America.
That same year, Charles's older brother was killed in a stupid drunken duel and Charles inherited the dukedom. He did not inherit a great deal of money with the title, but it would have been enough to keep Katherine in modest luxury. But Katherine was gone; he had not believed that her love was strong enough to withstand a few discomforts. Charles didn't care about the money he inherited; Charles didn't care about anything anymore.
Not long afterward, Charles's missionary brother died in India, and sixteen years later, Charles's wife Amelia died.
On the night of Amelia's funeral, Charles got thoroughly blindly inebriated, as he often did in those days, but on that particular night, as he sat in the gloomy solitude of his house, a new thought occurred to him: someday soon he, too, was going to die. And when he did, the ducal holdings would pass out of the hands of the Fieldings forever. Because Charles had no heir.
For sixteen years, Charles had lived in an odd, empty limbo, but on that fateful night, as he contemplated his meaningless life, something began to grow within him. At first, it was only a vague restlessness, then it became disgusting; it grew into resentment, and then slowly, very slowly, it built into fury. He had lost Katherine; he had lost sixteen years of his life.
had endured a vapid wife, a loveless marriage, and now he was going to die without an heir. For the first time in 400 years, the ducal title was in danger of passing entirely out of the Fielding family, and Charles was suddenly determined not to throw it away, as he had thrown away the rest of his life.
True, the Fieldings had not been a particularly honorable or worthy family, but, by God, the title belonged to them and Charles was determined to keep it there.
To do that he needed an heir, which meant he would have to marry again. After all his youthful sexual exploits, the thought of climbing atop a woman now and fathering an heir seemed more tiresome than exciting. He thought wryly of all the pretty wenches he had bedded long ago of the beautiful French ballerina who had been his mistress and had presented him with a bastard…
Joy brought him surging to his feet. He didn't need to marry again because he already had an heir! He had Jason. Charles wasn't certain if the laws of succession would allow the ducal title to pass to a bastard son, but it made no difference to him. Jason was a Fielding, and those very few people who had known of Jason's existence in India believed he was the very legitimate son of Charles's younger brother. Besides, old King Charles had bestowed a dukedom on three of his bastards, and now Charles Fielding, Duke of Atherton, was about to follow suit.
The next day, Charles hired investigators to make inquiries, but it was two long years before one of the investigators finally sent a report to Charles with specific information. No trace could be found of Charles's sister in - law, but Jason had been discovered in Delhi, where he had amassed a fortune in the shipping and trading business. The report began with Jason's current direction; it ended with all the information the investigator had discovered about Jason's past.
Charles's proud exaltation at Jason's financial successes promptly dissolved into horror and then sick fury as he read of his sister-in-law's depraved abuse of the innocent child he had handed into her care. When he was finished, he vomited.
More determined now than ever to make Jason his rightful heir, Charles sent him a letter, asking him to return to England so that he could formally acknowledge him as such.
When Jason didn't reply, Charles, with a determination that had long been dormant in his character, set off for Delhi himself. Filled with inexpressible remorse and absolute resolve, he went to Jason's magnificent home. In their first meeting, he saw firsthand what the investigator's report had already told him: Jason had married and fathered a son and was living like a king. He also made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with Charles, or with the legacy Charles was trying to offer him. In the ensuing months, while Charles stubbornly remained in India, he slowly succeeded in convincing his cold, reticent son that he had never condoned or imagined the unspeakable abuses Jason had suffered as a child. But he could not convince him to return to England as his heir.