He pulled himself up to his feet, leaning on the corner of the mantel. He could feel the brandy still fogging his brain and muffling the sound of his last argument with Constance, as it echoed endlessly in his head. Perhaps, if he had something to do with his time and kept very busy, he could ignore it all together.
Perhaps he would fall off an ivy trellis or out of a window somewhere and never have to think of anything again. But he could not stay locked up in his rooms, alone with the knowledge that the dream that had sustained him for many lonely years was over.
He brushed imaginary dust from his stained shirt, and lifted a stubbled chin to his guest. ‘Very well, then. I’ve made an ass of myself, and you have seen it. But the worst of it is over, I think. If you still wish to employ me, then give me time to bathe, shave and change. And then tell me what you want taken.’
St John smiled as if nothing unusual had occurred. ‘Good man.’
‘Susan, you know I don’t take milk in my tea.’
Her maid looked at her with guilty eyes. ‘I thought perhaps, your Grace, you might wish to try something more fortifying. Now that autumn is here, I mean. It wouldn’t do to take a chill.’
‘Fortifying.’ She looked at the tea. It was wretched stuff, but Susan was right. It was probably more nourishing. She took a sip.
Susan added, ‘If you are not feeling well, your Grace, there is a lady in Cheapside that sells certain herbs. And when brewed up in a tea, these tend to clear up the sort of malady that you might be coming down with.’
‘No!’ Her hand went instinctively to cover her belly. She relaxed. ‘I am sorry, Susan. I did not mean to shout so. You were right the first time to put milk in my tea. No matter how I might complain, it is good for me. And perhaps an egg and a bit of dry toast. Could you bring it to my room? I do not feel like going downstairs until I am sure that I will not be sick.’
There was no point in pretending any more with Susan, who knew her cycle almost as well as she did herself. She was two months gone with child.
‘Very good, your Grace. But…’ Susan left the statement open. She dare not ask the question, but she wanted an answer, all the same. Something must be done. They must leave London and retire quietly to the country where she could have the babe in secret. Or she must take the herbs and end it.
‘Please, Susan. A little breakfast, perhaps.’
‘Very good, your Grace.’
Her maid left the room, and she turned to the window, staring out into the garden. The trellis below her was bare, and she could see that it had been as if she had installed a ladder to her bedroom window. The garden gate and wall were still an easy climb, although the garden had less cover than when it had been in full bloom.
She closed her eyes, trying to imagine him making his way across it. It wouldn’t happen, of course. She had seen nothing of him for a month and a half. Even when she had gone out in public, the most she’d heard was someone mentioning that Anthony Smythe had just been in attendance, but had retired early. Or was expected, but seemed to be late.
He was avoiding her. And she could hardly blame him.
Fortunately, other men were not. Endsted had returned, and renewed his attentions with a kind of plodding respectability that rekindled her hopes for the future. And other, more eligible, men were more respectful, now that Barton was no longer warning off suitors and spreading rumours about her.
Of course, in a few short months, everyone would know that the rumours were true. If she wished to marry well, she needed to act quickly to put an end to the pregnancy. It was just as her own mother would have told her to do, had anything stood between her and her goal.
And it was the sensible thing to do, she reminded herself. She had proved her fertility to herself, at least. She could hint to any man who showed serious interest that she had reason to believe the problems getting an heir were her late husband’s and not her own. She could find another peer, and resume her status in society. She could have her comfortable old life back. But this time she might have children, as well as a husband.
She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Or she could go to Tony, and never be content again. She would spend her life alternately terrified by his job, and frustrated by his carefree attitude about the risks and his unwillingness to share everything that was in his heart or his mind. She might never have his full heart, and perhaps some day he would leave her to chase the dream woman he longed for. But when he came to her at night, she would have his undivided attention.
And she would not have a family in the future. She would have the baby she’d always wanted. The one that was growing in her now would be warm in her arms in a few months, smiling up at her, with his father’s smile. And no matter what might happen, she would love them both with her whole heart, for how could she help but do otherwise?
Susan returned with the tray, setting it gently down upon the bed.
‘Thank you, Susan. I am sure that I will feel much better after a little breakfast. And I will not be wanting any herbs.’ She looked at her maid. ‘I have waited too long for this. No matter what, I will not end it.’
Susan looked at her with pity. The poor abandoned duchess and her bastard. How could she explain that it was only pride keeping her from doing what she had promised?
Pride and the whirlwind of emotions that caught at her, every time she looked at the future. She had thought it would be easier to send him away than to keep him close. But life without him was every bit as hard as life with him had been.
She had told him it was over, and she’d regretted it the moment the words had been out of her mouth. She had finally managed to make him angry. He had shouted so. And his words had been so bitter. It was not, as she had expected, the cavalier agreement that the time had come to part. She had cut him to the heart in one stroke.
She’d cut herself as well. She had stood, frozen, watching him go. Wanting to call him back, even as he stepped through the window.
Every night since, she’d thought of him, burning hot and cold, with desire, or remorse, or longing, or the strange sensations coursing through her body that she had come to know as pregnancy.
She was having his child. Even better, their child. She could no more end it than she would end her own life. To be able to have something so precious, a gift that he had not wanted to give her, for fear that it would ruin her. Even then, he’d cared more for her reputation than he did his own pleasure. He’d left a bit of himself behind for her to keep, after vowing that he would protect her, and the babe, if it came to that.
He had never said he loved her. But did she really need to hear the words, if he would behave thus?
How could she have been so blind? He might not love her with the grand passion she wished, but he cared for her in all the ways that mattered.
She loved him, with a dizzying, soul-wrenching intensity that was nothing like the warm glow she had felt for Robert. And doubted that she could bring herself to marry another, no matter what Tony might feel for her.
Constance reached beneath her pillow for the strip of linen, hidden there. A man’s cravat, carefully folded, hidden where she could touch it, when the night was dark and she was feeling most alone. If she could bring herself to admit that she had been wrong, and persuade him to forgive her, she might never be alone again.
‘Susan,’ she called. ‘Lay out my clothes. I am going out.’
Patrick announced her, and she entered the study more hesitantly than she had the last time she’d needed a favour from him. She was dressed differently as well. Where she had come to seduce before, today she was attired modestly: the low square neck of her bodice filled with a fichu, the skirt of the dress