Free The Bride's Secret by Cheryl Bolen

purge himself of his obsessive desire for her. More than that, this self-imposed exile was his way of punishing himself for having craved a woman who belonged to another. For he had come to realize he had always been in love with Carlotta Ennis. His Goddess of the Night. Even when her husband had been alive.
    James was so disgusted with himself, he questioned his own sincerity in befriending Stevie. Had that, too, been done in order to be close to the lad's ravishingly beautiful mother?
    He heard a rapping at his door and looked up to see his secretary stroll into the vast room. “I have some correspondence which needs your signature, my lord,” Fordyce said. The young man drew up in front of his employer and handed James a stack of letters. “If I might be so bold as to suggest you move closer to the fire. It's deuced cold here by the window, my lord.”
    “The cold suits me,” James said grimly, dipping his quill into the ink and penning his signature on one page after another, glancing over each before he signed.
    When he finished, he handed them back to his man of business. “Be a good man and tell Mrs. MacGinnis not to bother with dinner tonight. I'm not hungry.”
    Once Fordyce had left the chamber, James poured himself a glass of port. So what if it was but two in the afternoon? He sat back in his leather chair and took a long drink. What had come over him? He'd always been a man's man, interested in masculine pursuits. Yet now all he could think of was a violet-eyed widow and her small, dependent son. The pair of them elicited in him a sense of protection. He thrived on supporting them in any way he could, be it by paying their lease or just by being there with a helping hand.
    But how could he allow himself the intoxication of being near her when he'd adulterously coveted her all these years?
    He took another sip and closed his eyes as the port warmed its path down to his gut. Against his will, he pictured Carlotta. Carlotta lying on silken sheets, her black hair draping across her breasts. Breasts that begged to be taken in his hands—and in his mouth. He saw her heavily lashed eyelids drop seductively as she lifted her face to his.
    Enraged with himself, he threw his wine glass against the bricks of the hearth.
    * * *
    One dreary day succeeded another. Carlotta finally finished her piecework and re-read her slim volume of Coleridge so many times she committed the verses to memory. Oddly, every line brought to mind the noble James Rutledge and reminded her of how truly she missed him.
    She had not left Monmouth Place since she had last seen him. She had not taken a single meal with Stevie, nor had she actually sat down at the table for a meal herself. 'Twas as if Lord Rutledge had stolen away with her appetite, too.
    After a week had passed, she told herself he was never coming back.
    As a tribute to her fondness for him and for what he done for her and Stevie, Carlotta flung aside her poetry and mounted the stairs to her son's nursery. Just because the carpet had been ripped from beneath her feet was no reason to penalize the boy. He had to be feeling Lord Rutledge's loss as keenly as she. The two had been extremely close. She scorned herself for not having thought of Stevie's bereavement.
    With each step she took, her excitement grew. Her lips curved into a smile as she climbed past the second floor. She had missed the little fellow. Hang Lord Rutledge! She no longer needed him to show her how to be a mother. He had opened her eyes to her son's worth. Now she could proceed without his guidance. She would see that Stevie's happiness was not thwarted—with or without Lord James Rutledge!
    As she neared the top floor, where her son's nursery was located, she heard muffled sobs. Clutching at her breast, she flew to the door of the nursery and flung it open. Had something happened to her son? Her heart beat erratically.
    There sat her son, huddled in a corner of the chilly room, his thin legs blue from the cold,