The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,79

your gun to comfort him as he’s weeping.”

He reached out his arms toward Kenley, and Pippa covered her mouth with both hands. She was certain Rosie would pull the trigger. That she would be forced to watch Rhys bleed out on the floor as she had watched Erasmus do weeks before.

Only she didn’t. Instead, Rosie released Kenley as Rhys took him. He pivoted swiftly and handed him over to Pippa. She clutched his warm, solid weight and backed away, out of the line of the gun’s sights. Kenley calmed as she held him, burying his head into her shoulder with a whimper of what sounded like exhausted relief.

Rhys turned back to Rosie. She still trained her gun on him, but her wrist had gone slack. Her eyes were filled with tears. She looked…lost. And despite all she had done, despite what she’d put Pippa through tonight and many other nights, Pippa felt sorry for her.

“You loved my brother for a long time, and you were denied happiness because of my father,” Rhys said. “I cannot imagine what you endured.”

He reached out and wrapped his hand around the barrel of the pistol. He pushed it so it no longer pointed at his chest and then twisted so that Rosie was forced to release it. Once she had, she collapsed to her knees on the floor, sobbing.

Rhys pocketed the gun, yet made no move to take this woman into custody of any kind. Pippa moved toward him, took his hand as they stared down at the woman at their feet.

“What will you do for my child?” Rosie sobbed.

“I will provide the same life for him that I would give my own son,” Rhys promised. “I will protect him, guide him, love him. He will want for nothing that I can provide.”

Rosie’s tears subsided a bit with that promise, and she looked up at him, at Pippa. “You will give him a family?” she whispered. “A future? The two of you?”

Pippa blinked because she realized that Rosie assumed she and Rhys would be together. Not a fact that was likely to come to pass, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was keeping Kenley secure.

“Yes,” she said.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Rosie whimpered. “In London, I mean, in England. I miss Erasmus, I hate what I did to him. Everything here haunts me. I thought I could come here and take Kenley and make a life. But when I saw him…he haunted me too. He has so much of Erasmus in him.”

“He does,” Pippa agreed. “But also so much of you. He is yours, I don’t want you to think I don’t know it.”

Rosie sobbed a little harder. “I want to start a new life, but the idea of leaving him behind, even if I know he could be happy with you…”

Pippa handed Kenley off to Rhys and sank to her knees in front of the other woman. She took her hands gently. “I will write to you wherever you end up. I will give you all the news of him. And when he is older, old enough to understand, perhaps you can one day meet with him again.”

She meant those words as she said them. Imperfect or not, troubled or not, this woman was Kenley’s mother. They had a right to know each other, to love each other. She couldn’t deny the boy that any more than she would deny him any other part of his history.

“You would do that?” Rosie hiccupped.

“She would,” Rhys said. “She is too good not to keep a promise. And I will make one too. I will provide you the funds for your trip, and a little to start anew, wherever you go. I owe you that. My brother owed you more.”

Rosie was still for a moment, staring up at the baby once more. Then she slowly got to her feet and Pippa followed her. Rosie sucked in a shaky breath and then nodded. “Taking care of him on my own wouldn’t be easy…for either of us. And I don’t know if I could ever look at him and not see what I…what I did.” She let out a hiccupping sob before she continued, “It’s obvious he loves you both. So if you love him in return, then this would be the best place for him.” There was relief on her face alongside the deep sadness. “I can start over and he can too.”

Rhys glanced at Pippa and she saw what he wanted to do. She