A flurry of pacing merely confirmed the stark truth. When she’d made the decision to come here, she’d deliberately broken all ties to her former life, to family, friends and any acquaintances who might have come to her aid. Only one individual remained who knew her true identity, and she was the one link by which Charleton might yet trace Laura.
Her former governess, Miss Hollins, whose sister “Aunt Mary” had secretly conveyed back to Merriville a battered, dying runaway wife. Having initially come to Miss Hollins’s home to tend a young governess, incapacitated by influenza at the local inn while journeying to her new post, Aunt Mary arrived to find at her sister’s cottage both that unfortunate—and Laura. After the poor woman died, the two sisters had buried her in a grave bearing Laura’s name. If Charle ton retained any suspicions about the identity of the remains beneath the simple granite marker he’d been shown when he finally tracked Laura to Miss Hollins’s cottage three months later, he’d still be watching that house—and Miss Hollins.
Another five minutes of pacing left her with the same worrying conclusion. She simply didn’t have funds enough to support herself unassisted in some faraway community for nearly a year. If she were going to relocate for a time, she must have some assistance. Miss Hollins was the only person she could both trust with the truth and ask for help. She would have to risk contacting her again.
She hugged herself, fighting the bitterly familiar spiral of fear that clogged her veins and tightened her stomach. I will protect us, Jennie, she vowed.
There is one other option, a small voice argued. You could seek out the earl.
The thought brought back the image of his face, the echo of his voice, the dearly remembered touch of his gentle fingers. Longing rippled through her. Ah, how good it would be to make her way to London, to relax her constant vigil in the comforting warmth of his powerful presence, to cast this dilemma into his capable hands!
She smiled wryly. Given the circumstances, at least he’d know she wasn’t trying to trick him into marriage.
The smile faded. But as she’d told him that night, powerful as he was, he was not above the law. If she risked going to London and Charleton discovered her, Lord Beaulieu could not prevent her husband from seizing her.
An even bleaker realization dawned, so awful the lingering desire to run to his lordship evaporated on the instant. As she was still legally Charlton’s wife, any child she bore was also his. Were Charleton to find her, he could claim the child. Their child. Beau’s son.
And he would do it, finding the act a fitting revenge. No, she resolved, let her flee to the ends of England, but should she be discovered, let Charleton believe the child she carried the by-blow of some farmer or curate, not worthy of being claimed as his own. Let him never discover the babe’s true father.
Her resolve established, the fear retreated to a grim, ever-present shadow. She’d spread word of her intended departure to the squire and several of the neighborhood ladies. Briefly she considered sending a note to Lady Elspeth, who’d borne her much-recovered brother back home with her the previous week, and swiftly decided against it. The fewer who had definite knowledge of her plans, the better. She’d not even send a note ahead to warn Miss Hollins.
Misfit rubbed against her hand, whining for attention. Absently she leaned down to scratch his head, already aching with regret to leave behind the peace of her cottage, her garden, the kind solicitude of the squire and the families of their small neighborhood. Resolutely she put aside the grief, focusing her mind on beginning the necessary planning. She would leave within the week.
She couldn’t risk even the smallest possibility that Charleton might get his hands on Beau’s child.
Chapter Sixteen
A few days later Beau sat at the desk in his study, reviewing the nearly completed dossier on Lord Wolverton. Over the past three weeks the investigation had picked up speed, all the meticulous details painstakingly gathered by his operatives finally coming together to create a clear picture of the embezzler’s web. Once Beau received the last overseas reports for which he still waited, he’d have sufficient evidence to present the dossier to Lord Riverton.
Normally by this point he’d be experiencing the deep satisfaction of another puzzle solved, tempered by the sadness of confirming once again human nature’s frailty. But he’d had to exert all his self-control to keep his mind focused on business. For his private investigation of Laura Martin had not proceeded nearly as well.
Initially he’d expected to uncover her identity so he might return to Merriville before Ellie transported the recovering Kit from Everett Hall. But once his lungs cleared, Kit had improved more quickly than anticipated, a fact of which Beau could only be glad, and Ellie decided to move her brother the shorter distance to her country estate rather than trespass upon Squire Everett’s hospitality until Kit was fit enough for the longer journey to London.
Beau could not now cloak a visit to Mrs. Martin under the guise of checking on his brother. To journey to Merriville and call on her without such a socially acceptable excuse would be so glaringly remarkable as to immediately give rise to precisely the sort of speculation and possible censure the vicar had warned about. Beau dared not approach her now until he had all the facts necessary to persuade her immediate removal. And those facts had not yet fallen into place.
Was she still safe? She’d been so ten days ago, for the message Ellie had written him when she’d arrived home at Wentworth Hall pointedly mentioned they’d left Mrs. Martin with their warmest thanks and a promise to meet again soon—his sister had underlined the word.
With more fervency than his manipulating sister could have dreamed, Beau wished to meet Laura Martin again soon. The month since he’d last seen her seemed an eternity. He would never have imagined that in the brief few weeks they’d spent together she would have so infiltrated his heart and mind that being away from her would create this raw sense of loss.
He missed the subtle loveliness of her presence, even garbed in hideous brown gowns, her low-pitched voice expressing some pithy comment or shimmering with humor as she joked with Kit. He missed the soft rose scent of her perfume, the polished mahogany sheen of the curls that escaped those ridiculous dowager caps. He craved the sight of her inquisitive eyes and angled chin as she gazed up at him with that endearing sparrow look.
Knowing he’d otherwise go mad with frustration and fury, he cut himself off from remembering any detail of their last night together, when she’d given herself to him with such innocent eagerness, proving to his amazement that a woman who’d borne a child could still be so heartbreakingly ignorant in the ways of pleasure. And yet he’d been fiercely glad that he was undoubtedly the first to unlock its secrets for her, exulting to know that special bond was theirs, theirs alone.
Though he might by supreme act of will block out the memories, he could not filter from his blood the sharp edge of need she’d created in him. In a curious way, the sense of her with him, in him was nearly as acute now, when hundreds of miles separated them, as it had been across the narrow space of her bed.
Each day that passed without bringing him the information he needed to claim her intensified both his impatience and his urgency, destroying his sleep, shortening his temper such that increasingly he found himself biting back the first, acid comment that came to his lips.
In fact, he realized with mild chagrin, given the lowered voices and apprehensive looks his household staff had treated him to for the past week, he must have been less successful in stifling such comments than he’d thought. A knock at the study door interrupted his resolve to do better.
His secretary entered, a sheaf of papers in his outstretched hands. “The reports from the West Indies and Bombay for which you’d been waiting, my lord.”
“Thank you, James, and be seated,