Текст книги "The Duke and His Duchess"

Автор книги: Grace Burrowes

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 8 страниц)

Five

“She didn’t ask how much I wanted, she asked how much I needed.” Kathleen St. Just fell silent rather than try to explain to her son why desperate schemes were rioting through her brain.

Devlin glanced up from where he was laying out playing cards on his mother’s bedspread, this room being the only one with even a meager fire. “The lady who gave me chocolate was nice. The horses were wonderful.”

The deck he was playing with lacked several cards, and try as he might to pair each one with a match, his game was doomed. Being a child, he hadn’t figured this out, and Kathleen wasn’t about to tell him.

“That lady is your papa’s wife. She’s kind.” And for that kindness, Kathleen wanted to hate her, which was of no moment whatsoever. “Also very rich.”

They spoke Gaelic, which was a sign of how tired Kathleen was. Bad enough Devlin was illegitimate, worse yet if he sported a brogue as he got older. “I received another letter from Mr. O’Dea.”

Devlin glanced at her when she switched to English. “Mr. O’Dea lives back home.”

Back home was a place the boy would have little memory of, or so Kathleen hoped. She’d visited only once during Devlin’s short lifetime. “He does. He asked after you.”

Devlin made no reply, remaining focused on his cards. Billy O’Dea always asked after “the boy,” but his sentiments regarding Devlin were one reason why Kathleen hadn’t made any more trips back to Ireland. With the tolerant pragmatism of a man who knew exactly how Kathleen earned her livelihood, Billy—like Kathleen’s own family—believed Devlin’s best chance for a good start in life lay in throwing the boy on his father’s charity, and Billy was not wrong.

He was also not going to offer marriage unless or until Kathleen heeded his advice. On that tired thought, wind rattled the glass and fluttered the curtains, bringing an icy draft into the room.

And winter was only getting started. Kathleen thought of the vile things Gregory Pelham had whispered in her ear as she earned her coin with him like a doxy in his mews, and wanted to retch.

“One day soon, we’re going back to visit your papa’s wife again.”

Devlin turned up a pair of queens and smiled. “Will she give me more chocolate?”

“Yes. She’ll give you more chocolate. As much chocolate as you can drink.”

Without making a sound, Kathleen started to cry.

* * *

“Your papa has asked us to return to Morelands. You’ll like that, won’t you?” Esther adopted the cheery tones of a parent bent on deceiving small children, though from the look Bart and Gayle exchanged, she’d failed miserably.

Gayle kicked at the dead leaves on the frozen ground. Bart dropped Esther’s hand and skipped ahead a few steps. “I like the park. If we go home, we can’t play in the park. Papa visits with us more here too. I like when Papa visits.”

Gayle echoed the complaint as they wandered along the Serpentine, cold winter sunlight bouncing off the water in the middle of the lake. Near the shore, ice had once again formed. Esther resisted the urge to find a rock and pitch it hard at the ice, lest the boys complain about missing the Serpentine too.

“Papa will be home at Christmas,” Esther said, “and that’s just a few weeks away.” Though Percival hadn’t promisedto return to Morelands at Christmas.

Bart’s face lit up with glee as he pointed at a rider coming down the path on a chestnut stallion. “There’s Papa! Maybe he’ll let me ride home with him!”

Predictably, Gayle planted his mittened fists on his little hips. “That’s not fair! You got to ride with Papa last time, and it’s my turn.”

Percival Windham was so handsome, he nearly took Esther’s breath away. Mounted, he had a sort of rugged elegance that the painted town dandies in their clocked stockings and high heels would never achieve. And yet, that wasn’t why she loved him. She loved him because when he spotted them, he swung off his horse and held out his hands to the boys.

“My first and second lieutenants, scouting the wilds of Hyde Park in search of the general’s beautiful, lost daughter. I see you’ve found the poor, wandering damsel.”

“That’s not a damsel,” Gayle said, grabbing his father’s hand. “That’s Mama.”

“Why so it is.” Percival made her an elaborate bow, likely for the sake of his sons. Esther bobbed a curtsy for the same reason, when she wanted to tear a strip off her handsome, charming, randy husband for no reason in particular.

“Take me up, Papa!” Bart started. “I want to ride on Comet.”

“It’s my turn,” Gayle bellowed over his brother’s pleading.

Percival picked Gayle up and sat him on Comet’s empty saddle, then swung Bart up behind his brother. “Hush, the both of you. If you spook my horse, you’re likely to land in something objectionable, and your mama will not be pleased. Madam?” He winged his arm at her, and Esther felt a lump lodge in her throat.

“My thanks.” She tucked her hand over his arm, while with his free hand, Percival led the horse—now sporting a pair of pirate princes intent on plundering London from the back of their equine ship.

“Are you prepared to leave for Morelands in the morning, Wife?”

No.“Almost. There are a few things that can’t be packed up until shortly before we leave, and things the children will want in the coach.”

“A storybook or two?”

“Several storybooks, their favorite blankets, their soldiers.”

They strolled along, a young family to all appearances indulging the children’s high spirits on a chipper day.

Esther spoke at the same time as her husband, their unison perfect.

“I’ll miss you.”

From Esther’s perspective, they were both speaking the truth, but the missing would be very different for each of them. She would miss her husband with a bodily ache and a heavy heart, and more than a dollop of resentfulness. He would miss her with a passing wistfulness, particularly on the nights when his mistress could not accommodate him.

The thought sent a spike of nausea through Esther’s belly.

“Madam, are you well?”

She’d put her hand over her middle. Behind them, Comet clip-clopped along, and the boys plotted terror on the high seas of Mayfair

“I do not want to return to Morelands, Percival. There is no reason for it.”

He remained silent until they approached the gate that would see them onto Park Lane. Percival paused, the horse coming to a halt behind them.

“Will you go because I ask it of you, Esther? I will join you at Christmas if I have to walk every step of the journey back to you in my bare feet.”

Now was the time to tell him, no, she would not go. She would not so easily let him drift into the liaisons and affairs that eventually attended every titled marriage, save the eccentric few. Now was when she should join battle, except Percival’s eyes held such a grave request, she could not form the words.

She nodded, and they turned out of the park and onto the busy streets of Mayfair.

* * *

“You’re not off to the levee this morning, Husband?”

Esther looked tired to Percival, making him wonder if she’d waited up for him. When he’d dragged himself home after an execrable evening at the theater, Esther had been abed, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to wake her. His hesitance hadn’t stemmed from consideration for a woman who’d be trapped in a freezing coach with her children all day but rather from guilt.

All evening long he’d fielded curious glances and raised eyebrows from men who would no doubt tell their wives that Lord Percy Windham had been in the company of an old flame. And those wives would talk to each other, and eventually…

“I’m off to a meeting,” Percival said. “His Majesty has some notion Wales ought to be kept informed of the committee’s doings, though Wales is far more interested in chasing skirts than requisitioning uniforms.”

“Then I’ll bid you farewell. I’ve final packing to see to.”

She did not. Percival knew his wife well enough to know that her own effects had likely been packed before she’d found her bed the previous night. Esther pushed her chair back, and Percival covered her hand with his own. “I’ve said my good-byes to the boys, but…”

She gazed at him, her expression so solemn that guilt and frustration coalesced into shame. The damned beefsteak he’d been choking down threatened to rebel, and a life of such moments—ashamed, awkward, silent—rolled past in Percival’s mind.

“Esther, I love you. I wouldn’t be asking you to leave if I did not love you.”

If she asked him why her departure was necessary, he would have no answer for her: Because a vicious woman was going to use a small child to wreak vengeance on an entire family; because a randy young officer had made foolish choices.

Because he could not bear to see Esther hurt.

He kissed her cheek. “Will you finish my steak for me? One doesn’t want to be late, even if Wales will be more drunk than sober at such an early hour.”

Something shifted in Esther’s green-eyed gaze, something cooled and reassessed. “I don’t care for beef at breakfast, Percival. Perhaps you’ll serve yourself smaller portions in future rather than expect me to finish your meal.”

Her tone was so perfectly bland, Percival had to wonder if she hadn’t already heard with whom he’d been seen the previous evening. “I will try to recall your preferences when next we’re dining at the same table.”

He rose, held her chair for her, and hated what his life was about to become. Hated it so much in fact, that when he’d managed to take his leave of his lady wife without shouting, breaking things, and rampaging through the house, he did not go to his meeting. Percival instead took himself to that address he most loathed in all of London.

“Good morning, your lordship.” The same footman who’d listened at Cecily’s keyhole was now minding her front door. “Madam has not yet come down, though if you’ll follow me to the parlor, the kitchen will send up a tray.”

The words were right and the tone was deferential and brisk, but the fellow’s gaze was shifty, more shifty than it had been even when he’d been eavesdropping. Percival handed him his cloak, and noticed another gentleman’s coat hanging from a hook in the foyer. The garment was well made, a soft, dark wool with crested buttons that suggested both wealth and good taste.

Also a complete lack of common sense on some poor fellow’s part. Percival did not stare at the coat, lest the footman catch him at it, but the presence of that coat spoke volumes.

Percival took himself down the hallway toward the foyer, addressing the footman over his shoulder. “A tray would be appreciated, with chocolate and none of that damned tea.”

Chocolate would take longer to prepare, and for what Percival intended, every moment counted.

“Very good, my lord.”

The footman scampered toward the back stairs, while Percival kept right on going past the parlor. The plan he’d formed was daring and precipitous, but an eternity of nights toadying to Cecily O’Donnell was unthinkable. And as for Esther…

He pushed thoughts of his wife aside, knowing that dear lady was already on her way to the countryside. If the gods smiled upon a well-intended husband, then Esther need never know of what was about to transpire.

Cecily’s bedroom door was closed, thank God, probably the better to hog the heat from the only fire outside the kitchen. When he gained the nursery, Percival paused.

What he was about to do was in some way selfish, and in some way proper—it was also right.

“Maggie.”

His daughter glanced up from the same pile of damaged toys he’d found her with previously.

“Papa.” She scrambled to her feet but then checked herself, making a painful contrast to the way Percival’s sons had greeted him in the park—to the way they always greeted him.

“Collect up your things, my dear. I’m taking you away from this house.”

“We’re going on an outing?”

“Something like that. Bring your doll and your soldiers and anything else that matters to you.”

She disappeared into a cupboard and emerged with Percival’s coat. “Burton said we could sell it for coal, but I didn’t want to. I like how it smells, and the buttons have a unicorn on them.”

Maggie held still while Percival fastened the frogs of a wool cloak under her chin, and she said nothing when he stuffed her doll and soldiers into his pockets. As they stole back down through the house—making only one brief stop in the parlor—Percival wondered if there was a greater comment on Maggie’s situation than that all she really knew of her father was the scent of his cologne.

Six

Esther had wanted to leave for Morelands an hour ago, but the children were being recalcitrant, and the nursery maids—one of whom was enamored of the porter—were abetting them.

And while Esther waited for this favorite pair of boots to be found and an indispensable storybook to be tucked into the coach, she thought of her husband and of the solemn, dark-haired boy who bore her husband’s eyebrows.

A man who was going to keep a mistress for all of London to see could afford to quietly support his son at some decent school in the Midlands. Winter was barely under way, and the boy’s mother had already been reduced to begging. This was perhaps the inevitable fate of a woman plying the harlot’s trade, except…

Except if Esther had been that boy’s mother, she’d do much worse than beg if it would see him fed. Thinking not as a wife, but as a mother, Esther could not leave Town without making at least a short call on Kathleen St. Just, whose direction she’d obtained at their last encounter. Knowing that the traveling coach would still take at least an hour to pack, Esther called for the town coach and dressed in her plainest cloak and boots.

Kathleen St. Just opened the door to a perfectly nondescript little house on a perfectly nondescript street. “My lady, I am surprised to see you.”

Surprised was a euphemism, likely covering shock and humiliation, as well a quantity of resentment, though Esther did not quibble over it. The freezing house, the stink of tallow rather than beeswax in the foyer, and the fact that Mrs. St. Just had opened her own door announced the situation plainly enough.

Esther swept past her hostess rather than linger on the stoop. “I will not take up much of your time, Mrs. St. Just. Is your son on the premises?”

Fear, or something close to it, flitted through Mrs. St. Just’s eyes. “He is.”

“Shall we repair to a parlor, then? What I have to say affects the boy.”

It would affect Esther’s marriage too, though she brushed that thought aside and followed Mrs. St. Just to a parlor that surely had never been used for company. Had it been warmer, the room would have been cozy. An entire flower garden was embroidered and framed on one wall, species by species, in exquisite needlework. A teacup and saucer sat on a low table near a workbasket, the saucer chipped but still serviceable.

“My lady, you will forgive the clutter, but this is the smallest parlor and the easiest to heat.”

“You need not build up the fire for me,” Esther said, and that was true, because she hadn’t surrendered her cloak at the door, and Mrs. St. Just—who was wearing two shawls herself—hadn’t offered to take it. “I will be blunt, Mrs. St. Just. My husband has banished me back to the countryside, the better to disport as a young man is wont to when in the capital. I have not informed him that you’re raising his son, but I think some provision should be made for the boy sooner rather than later.”

“You’re leaving London?”

This did seem to occasion surprise. “My husband has asked it of me, so yes.”

A shaft of anger accompanied those words, and yet, Percival had askedit of her, he hadn’t ordered her to go.

Mrs. St. Just squared her shoulders, which let Esther realize she and this woman were the same height—and what metaphor did that speak to? “Then you can take Devlin with you.”

And this was cause for surprise all around, because Mrs. St. Just seemed as startled by her own pronouncement as Esther was.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You either take him with you, or I’ll approach his lordship in public and make the same request. I’ll demand money. I’ll let all and sundry know Moreland’s spare has a son on the wrong side of the blanket.”

The woman was daring herself to do these things. Esther heard that in her tone and saw it in the wild uncertainty in her eyes.

“Sit down, Mrs. St. Just.” Esther managed to settle onto a sofa with no little dignity, which was at complete variance with the wobbling of her knees. “What are you saying? That you’d expose your son to avoidable scandal? That you’d disgrace yourself and embarrass my husband over a bit of coin?”

The woman got herself to a chair, but half fell onto it, as if blind with drink or great emotion. “I’m saying that, yes. Devlin’s father has obligations to him. Nobody would argue that.”

No they would not, though despite those obligations, despite the cold hearth and her obvious need, Mrs. St. Just had yet to inform Devlin’s father he even had a son.

“When was the last time you ate, Mrs. St. Just?”

She shook her head.

“I gave you a bracelet, and that bracelet should have bought a load of coal and put food in your pantry.” Esther let a bit of ire—ire for the boy—infuse her tone.

“That money is for Devlin. Where he sleeps, we keep a fire, and there’s food enough for him. I bought him a coat too, because he’s growing so quickly…”

She closed her eyes and stopped speaking. Esther watched in horror as a tear trickled down the woman’s cheek.

“Here.” Esther reached into her reticule and withdrew a shiny red apple, one of the many weapons a mother would arm herself with prior to a coach journey with children. “Eat this. Eat it right now, and we will talk about your son… about Devlin.”

And they talked, mostly about the boy. Esther let Kathleen be the one to fetch him, the one to explain that he’d be staying “for a time” with the chocolate lady and that he was to be a good boy when he met his papa.

“Papa has the horses.” To the little fellow, this was a point in Papa’s favor.

“He does,” Esther said, “and we’ve a cat too, though I’m not supposed to know she sleeps in the nursery when she’s done hunting in the mews.”

From his perch on his mother’s lap, young Devlin assayed a charming and all-too-familiar smile. “I like cats. Cats like to play.”

“They do. Tomcats in particular are fond of their diversions.” Esther rose, wanting abruptly to get on with her day and all the drama it was likely to hold. She did not doubt that she had made the right decision, though it would by no means be an easy decision to live with—for any of them. “Shall we be on our way?”

She did not reach for the child. Mrs. Just hugged him, whispered something in his ear, and let him scramble to his feet. He parted from his mother easily, secure the way every child should be secure in the idea that his mama would always be a part of his life.

Mrs. St Just rose slowly. “Fetch your new coat, Devlin, and then come right back here.”

He pelted off, his footsteps sounding to Esther exactly like Bart’s and Gayle’s… like his brothers’.

“Your ladyship is wrong about something.”

Esther regarded the other woman, seeing weariness and sadness but also peace in her gaze. “I think you are making the best decision for your son,” Esther began. “And I will of course write to you, as promised, though I wish you’d agree to write back to him.”

“A clean break is better. I don’t want him to miss me. That’s not what you’re wrong about.”

“You will enlighten me?” The defensive note was unbecoming, if understandable.

“Your husband, his lordship… he loves you. He is not disporting with anybody, though I’ll grant you the man is an accomplished flirt.”

This, from Percival’s former mistress?

Esther jerked her mittens out of her pockets. “Mrs. St. Just, a certain sympathy of feeling between us as mothers of small boys is not an invitation for you to presume in any manner—”

A thin, cold hand touched Esther’s knuckles. “He loves you. He told me so in the king’s English when he came here to ask me about your ailments. He was beside himself with worry, risking all manner of talk just to be seen stabling his horse in the mews. He said you were stubborn, but he said it like he admired you for it, and he did not want to be asking the physicians, because they spread gossip.”

Esther abruptly sat back down. “Percival was here?”

“Just the once, and he went no farther than the parlor. He offered help before he left, and I did not… I did not want to take it, but then I realized my pride would not keep Devlin in boots, which was why you found me in your mews.”

The child came banging back into the parlor. “I’m ready. We can pet the horses, right?”

“We can pet every one,” Esther said, wondering where the ability to speak had come from. “Your papa can tell you their names.”

A few beats of silence went by, while Mrs. St. Just hugged her son again. He wiggled free, clearly anxious to make the acquaintance of his papa’s horses.

As they walked with him to the front hallway, Esther had to ask one more question. “What did you tell him—tell his lordship, I mean?”

The question apparently required no explanation. “I told him you were worn out from childbed and pregnancy. You needed red meat and rest, also light activity and a time to repair your health before you carried again. I trust you’re feeling somewhat better?”

“I am.” All the breakfast steaks and misplaced menus made sense, though little else did. “I truly am.”

She felt better still when she realized that presenting Percival with his son would likely generate a minor scandal. People would think they’d quarreled over the boy—which they well might—and pay less attention to the women Percival trifled with in Esther’s absence.

* * *

“You won’t be staying at this house,” Percival assured his daughter. “We will find you a nice accommodation and somebody to look after you who takes the job to heart. You’ll like that.”

Though Percival would not like it one bit.

“Why can’t I stay with you?” Little Maggie rode before him through the park like she’d been around horses since birth, which had to be blood telling, because her mother would not have allowed it.

“I wish you could.” He wished it with his whole heart, else how would he know she was safe from her infernal mother? And yet, if she dwelled under his roof, her mother—her legal custodian—would always know where to find her and be able to snatch her back. “This is a small house, and you would not have your own bedroom.”

“I don’t need my own bedroom. Burton used to sleep in my room, when I had a fire.”

“Maggie, you will never want for a fire again, and your soldiers will all have two legs.”

“I like Colonel George. He was very brave about losing his leg.”

She chattered on about the colonel perhaps being considered for a knighthood, though he’d rather be a general. Percival turned Comet into the alley that led to the mews, glad in his bones that Esther had already departed for Morelands. With luck, he could have Maggie situated somewhere not too far away by sundown, and then he and Cecily O’Donnell would come to whatever understandings were necessary to keep the girl safe.

* * *

“These are very big horses,” Devlin remarked. His tone was casual, but Esther well understood the grip the child kept on her hand as they walked past the team hitched to the traveling coach.

“They are very nicehorses,” she said. “They particularly like little boys, because your brothers come visit them frequently.”

Small fingers seized around Esther’s hand painfully tight. “My brothers?”

“You have four, and they are capital fellows, just like you.” Except those four had never known want, never known cold, never been expected to part with their mother’s love with no possible explanation.

“That’s a pretty horse.” Devlin did not point—the boy had wonderful manners—but his gaze fixed on a chestnut stallion walking up the alley.

As the clip-clop of shod hooves grew closer, for an instant, the picture before Esther’s eyes did not make sense. She recognized Comet, she recognized Comet’s handsome rider, but she did not… A small child, a red-haired girl, sat before Percival in the saddle. The child was vaguely familiar, and Esther had seen Percival wrap his forearm around his own sons with the very same vigilant protectiveness.

The horse shuffled to a halt. “Esther. You have not yet departed for Morelands.”

His tone was so grave.

The hair on Esther’s nape and arms prickled, and beside her, the boy was unmoving. “And you, my lord, have not been to any committee meetings.”

A groom came out to take Comet, sparing them conversation while Percival swung down, handed off the reins, and hefted the child out of the saddle. She stood beside Percival, her hand in his, her gaze watchful in the way of children who grew up early.

“You’re the Viking lady,” she said to Esther.

“She’s the chocolate lady,” Devlin replied. “She’s my papa’s wife.”

A thousand questions rose in Esther’s mind while the chill breeze pushed dead leaves across the cobbles. One of the coach horses stomped its great hoof and tossed its head as if impatient with the two adults staring at each other in silence.

“Percival, who in the world…?”

“Madam, we will speak privately.”

Of course they would, because if Percival thought to move his mistress and her offspring into Esther’s house, Esther would need a great deal of privacy to disabuse her husband of such a notion.

“Devlin, ask the grooms to show you and this girl the stable cat. There’s a kitty with only one eye, and she doesn’t yet have a name.”

A commotion by the back gate had all adult eyes slewing around as Bart and Gayle came barreling into the alley. “We’re ready to board the ship!” Bart bellowed.

Gayle came to a halt beside his older brother. “Who are they?” His green eyes narrowed on the girl. “Who’s she?”

Bart smacked his mittened hands together. “They can be the colonials! We can play Damned Upstart Colonials, and we’ll have French and colonials both. We can slaughter them and take scalps and everything while Mama and Papa kiss each other good-bye!”

Gayle glanced at his parents as if he knew exactly how long two parents could kiss each other, and grinned. “Come on.” He took Devlin by the hand. “There’s a tiger in the stables, and we can hunt her down for our supper.”

The red-haired girl fell in with the boys. “I want to be a lion who hunts down the hunters.”

“You have to be the damned upstart colonial,” Bart said. “I’m General Bart, and that’s Colonel Gayle.”

“Then I shall be a fierce, damned upstart colonial wolf named Maggie.”

* * *

What did a man say to the wife who’d come upon him riding along the alley with an unexplained by-blow up before him?

While Percival pondered that mystery, one of the children gave a shriek as a cat skittered around a corner of the stables, and small feet pelted off in a herd.

Percival stared at his wife, who stared back at him in visible consternation. He did not know what to say to her, did not know why she’d been in the company of that small dark-haired…

Images of the same child, warily clutching another woman’s skirts, barreled into Percival’s mind. He felt the impact physically, a spinning sensation that whirled through his body and changed everything in the blink of an eye.

Changed everything again.

There were two of them. Two small children who’d not known their father’s love or protection. His knees threatened to buckle, and still he did not know what to say.

“Percival?”

Esther spoke his name in dread, which he could not abide. He held out a hand to her. “Esther, please listen. Please, please listen.”

She aimed a puzzled frown at his outstretched hand, as if she did not comprehend what she beheld.

“Esther, you must listen to me.” Or he’d shoot Cecily Donnelly before witnesses then shoot himself. “I did not want for you to be hurt. You must believe that.”

Bart’s voice pierced the cold around them. “We’ve got her! Blast, you let her go!” The coach horses shifted in their harnesses and still, Esther merely regarded him.

“I think it possible I am not hurt after all. Who is the little red-haired girl, Percival?”

“My daughter and Cecily O’Donnell’s—may God have mercy upon me. I became aware of the child—I met her—only a few days past. Her name is Maggie, and she’s very bright.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have added that last. Percival let his hand fall to his side, and yet still, he held out hope that Esther might eventually forgive him. He knew from her expression that she was thinking, and that had to be encouraging.

She worried her lower lip while Percival uttered prayers more fervent than any he’d offered up in the Canadian wilderness.

“You know Devlin is your son?”

“I do now. His mother said nothing to me.”

“She said a great deal to me, most of which I had to agree with.”

From the barn, a girl’s voice called out, “She’s coming around the saddle room! Run, you lot!”

“Esther, may we continue this discussion where we have a measure of privacy?”

“Yes.” She strode across the alley and took his arm. “We had best. Come sit with me in the garden.”

His first thought was that a garden in winter was a depressing place, all dead flowers and bare trees. When Esther had him situated on a cold, hard bench, it occurred to Percival that here, while his marriage died a painful, civilized death, helpful servants would not intrude to ask if he wanted a bloody tray of perishing tea.

Esther took his hand. “Tell me about Mrs. O’Donnell, Percival, but be warned, I am not prepared to be reasonable where she is concerned.”

Where to start? “First, you must know I loathe the woman. Second, you should also know I went to the theater with her last night.”

Esther slipped her fingers free of his. Percival grabbed her hand right back and held it shamelessly tight.

“Husband, I do not understand you. You sport about before all of Polite Society with a woman you loathe, while the wife you profess to love is sent out into the countryside. You are generally very direct, Percival. You will have to explain this apparent contradiction to me.”

In her exaggerated civility, Percival realized that Esther was nowhere near as composed as she wanted him to think—a fortifying thought.

“Mrs. O’Donnell threatened the girl, threatened to make a bad situation worse. If I lent the woman my escort, she would spare the child and allow matters to go forth as if we maintained a cordial liaison. If I refused her my attentions, she’d stir the scandal broth at every turn and ensure the child—my own daughter—had no chance at a decent life. I needed time to make provisions for Maggie and placated that woman accordingly.”