She’d stepped in front of him, blocking his path as no one else in London would dare to do, and said quietly, ‘I wish to speak to you about the consequences of your recent trip to Dover.’
The coldness in her voice still lingered with the memory of the words. But none of that mattered now. ‘I will give her reason not to hate me. A hundred reasons. A thousand. I will give her everything I have. If the succession is to continue, I must have a wife and a child, Sam. There may be no better chance than this.’
The door beside them opened suddenly and Sam’s wife, Evelyn, stepped between them, hands on hips. ‘Explain yourselves, the pair of you. Tell me what that poor girl is claiming has no basis in fact.’ She turned to her husband, growing even angrier. ‘And that you had no part in this shameful business.’
Sam held up a hand as though to deflect his wife’s wrath. ‘I went with Michael to Dover, but only in hopes of talking some sense into him. As the Duke of St Aldric’s personal physician, it is my job to keep him in good health, is it not?’
His wife responded with a frosty nod.
‘He was showing signs of what I feared was chronic inebriation and had been—’ Sam gave a delicate clearing of the throat ‘—doing things that I do not wish to discuss in mixed company.’
‘Consorting with whores,’ Evelyn said, refusing to be shocked. Then she stared at Michael. ‘That does not excuse what happened to Miss Cranston.’
‘It was all a mistake, I swear. I was on my way to visit someone else and took a wrong turning. It was dark....’ That was hardly an excuse. He should have been able to tell the difference between the buxom barmaid he’d been seeking and the diminutive Miss Cranston, even without a light. But he could have sworn, as he had come into her bed, that she was willing and expecting him....
‘When I realised that he was missing above stairs, I searched Michael out and heard cries of alarm,’ Sam finished. ‘By the time I found him, it was too late.’
Evelyn gave a noise of disgust.
‘It grows worse,’ Sam admitted. ‘Miss Cranston, who, as I understand it, was a governess, was visiting the inn to meet with a future employer. The man arrived two steps behind me and witnessed the whole thing. She was sacked without references before she could even begin.’
Michael winced. He had but the vaguest memories of the last half of that evening. What he’d thought had been a thoroughly delightful interlude had ended in shocked cries, tears and shouting. And he had stood swaying on his feet in the midst of it wearing nothing but a shirt, with Sam looking at him much as he was now, in disappointment.
‘I have been sober since that moment,’ he reminded Evelyn. ‘And I would have settled with Miss Cranston the following morning had she not fled the inn before we could speak to her again.’
‘It is too late to concern yourself with what might have been,’ Evelyn said with a shake of her head. ‘It is what you mean to do now that matters.’
‘Is what she says true?’ Michael asked, not daring to hope. ‘Is she with child?’
‘To the best of my knowledge, yes,’ Evelyn answered.
Michael took care to school his face to neutrality. It was wrong of him to be excited at the thought. Even worse, he was glad of it. To have a child.... Better yet, to have a son....
When he was gone, there would be a new St Aldric to care for the people and the land. And this boy would be raised differently from the way he had been. It was as if, despite his reprehensible behaviour, a curse had been lifted from his house.
‘I said, what do you mean to do about it?’ Apparently, in his distraction he had been ignoring his sister-in-law.
So he explained his plan.
Chapter Two
The muffled conversation in the hall droned on. Though she knew they were talking about her, Maddie felt oddly detached from the situation. In the time before Dover, she had avoided behaviours that might incite gossip. Her expectations were modest and her future predictable. She would teach the children of strangers until they grew too old to need her. Then she would find another family in want of a governess. At the end of it, she would have a small amount of savings to retire on, or stay on in a household so fond of dear, old Miss Cranston that they kept her beyond her usefulness.
But that seemed a lifetime ago. No decent family would have her after the scandal. It had been foolish of her to suggest that particular inn, but when her new employer had suggested meeting her stage in Dover, the temptation had been too great. She’d returned to the place several times as years had passed, knowing that, in her dreams at least, she would be young and free of the responsibilities of her oh, so ordinary life. She had gone to bed thinking of nothing but Richard and their last night together in the very same room.
The man who had come to her this time was no dream lover. It had begun sweetly enough, but it had ended in a waking nightmare. The drunken stranger had been hauled from her bed, while Mr Barker stood, framed in the doorway, shouting that no such woman should be in a decent inn, much less allowed near innocent children. The argument had moved into the hallway and she had slammed the door, thrown on her clothes and run as soon as she was sure of her safety. But not before hearing the name of her attacker, as he demanded, in a slurred voice, that this other common fellow stop raising a fuss over strapping a barmaid.
After two months of unemployment, she’d run through most of her tiny savings. Then there had come the growing realisation that she would share her future with another: one too small and helpless to understand the predicament they were in. So she had taken the last of the money and bought a ticket for London.
Now she was visiting the house of a peer. She glanced around her. While the decoration was as elegant as she might have expected, her presence here was beyond the limits of her imagination. Even in the parlours of the families that had employed her, she had not dared to relax. There were always children to watch and to remove to the nursery when their behaviour grew tedious.
The same strangers were once again settling her fate in a public hallway, while she drank tea. Now that she had heard the truth, there was no sign that this Mrs Hastings would be easily silenced. There was a sharp sound of exclamation from her, as though one of the men had said something particularly shocking. Their muttered explanations sounded weak in comparison.
When a settlement was offered, Evelyn Hastings might serve as a mediator. She would know that decent people did not raise a child in secret and on a few pounds a year. A bastard of a duke deserved a decent education and a chance for advancement.
Maddie thought of her own childhood. The family that had taken her in had not let her forget that her origins were clouded. And the proper schools where she was boarded made no secret that she was there at the behest of an unnamed benefactor. There had been raised eyebrows, of course, but the money provided had been sufficient to silence speculation and the education had been respectable enough to set her on the path towards a career.
Surely St Aldric could do better than that for his by-blow. There could be excellent schools, and a Season and a proper marriage for a daughter, or business connections and a respectable trade for a son. If the duke claimed his offspring, it would not be without family. One parent was better than none. Once she was sure the child’s future was secure, she might quietly disappear, change her name and begin her life anew. No one need ever know of this unfortunate incident. She might be spared the snubs and gossip of decent women and the offers of supposed gentlemen convinced that, if she had fallen once, she might give