Esther stroked a hand from Percival’s forehead to his nape. Early in the marriage, she’d realized this particular touch soothed them both. “Peter and Arabella haven’t enjoyed marital intimacy for at least two years. Her sense is that he’s unable. Whatever ails him, it affects him in that regard as well.”
She felt Percival’s eyes close with the sweep of his lashes against the slope of her breast. “For two years?”
“I did not want to add to your burdens.” Though in hindsight, she wished she hadn’t kept this intelligence from her husband. “Bartholomew truly is going to be a duke.”
“He’ll make a fine duke—you will see to it, if nothing else. It isn’t Bart I’m worried about.”
Esther continued stroking her husband’s hair, taking some comfort from the idea that as reluctant as she was to contemplate becoming a duchess, her husband was equally reluctant to become a duke.
“You already are the duke, you know.”
He shifted up and nuzzled her breast. “I am no such thing. I’m only the spare by an unfortunate act of providence.”
Just as Esther did not ponder at any length whether her husband was resuming relations with a dashing mistress, Percival apparently did not want to examine too closely the prospect of a strawberry-leaf coronet.
“You are Moreland, Percival. You’re tending to matters of state, you’re running the estates, and you’ve secured the succession. For all relevant purposes, you are the duke—and you’re making a fine job of it.”
The conversation was intimate in a way that felt different from their previous intimacies. This was intimacy of the body, of course, but it was also intimacy of the woes and worries, and it bred desire as well.
If she initiated lovemaking with her weary, unhappy spouse, would he reciprocate, or would he withdraw, leaving Esther physically and emotionally empty?
She settled for taking his hand and resting it over her breast, then kissing his temple. Her last thought as she succumbed to slumber was a question: Would Percival use some of Peter’s largesse to set up a mistress? For a duke was entitled to his comforts.
He probably would, and tell himself he was being considerate of his wife when he did.
Four
“He’s a good man, your papa. An important man.”
Devlin did not meet his mother’s gaze as they walked along. She was pleading with him somehow, and he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like this neighborhood, where the streets were wide and the walkways all swept and he didn’t know the way home.
“Devlin, he was in the cavalry.”
Devlin forgot about the list of things he didn’t like.
“I’m going to be in the cavalry. I’m going to have my own horse, and I’m going to protect everybody for the king.”
Now Mama stopped walking, and right there with people hurrying by, crouched before Devlin. “Your papa can make that dream come true, Devlin. I cannot.”
Which was why they were going to his papa’s house, he supposed. They’d been to visit other men’s houses. Mama would wait in the stables and mews, and Devlin liked that just fine. Those places smelled of horses, and the grooms were usually friendly to a small boy who thought horses were God’s best creation.
“Will you talk to him in the stables?”
Mama kissed the top of his head—he hated when she did that—and rose, taking his hand again. “If I have to.” Her tone was grim, determined. She said Devlin got his determination from her.
She talked to men in the stables lately, sometimes telling Devlin to be good when she went into the saddle rooms or carriage houses with them. She was never gone long, and they could always get some food on the way home when she’d had one of her visits with the men.
Then too, stables were warm, and they smelled good. Home was not warm these days.
You could tell a lot about a man from his stables. Sir Richard Harrowsham was a friendly man who laughed a lot. His horses were content and well fed, his stables clean without being spotless.
Mr. Pelham’s horses were nervous, the grooms always rushing about, and the aisles never swept until somebody stepped in something that ought to have been pitched on the muckheap as soon as it hit the ground. Mama had been crying when she’d come back from her little meeting with Mr. Pelham.
Devlin’s papa’s stables were large. There were riding horses, coach horses, and even a draft team, which was unusual in Town for the nobs, though not for the brewers and such.
Devlin did not think his papa was a brewer. The grooms were friendly, the tack was spotless and tidy, and the horses… Devlin peered down the aisle at the equine heads hanging over half doors.
The horses were magical. They were huge, glossy, and glorious even in their winter coats. Their expressions were alert and confident, somehow regal. If horses could be generals and colonels, then these horses would be.
“You wait here,” Mama said, sitting Devlin on a trunk. “Be quiet and don’t get in the way.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She said something else, very quietly, in Gaelic. Mama never spoke the Gaelic in public. “I love you.”
Devlin smiled up at her, trying not to show how pleased he was. “Love you too!”
He watched her cross the stable yard and take up a position near somebody’s back gate. All the houses here had back gardens; their kitchens didn’t simply open onto a smelly alleyway. The grooms went about their business, mucking, scrubbing out water buckets and refilling them, cursing jovially at each other—but never at the horses.
When a groom asked Devlin if he’d like to help brush a horse, Devlin decided his papa must be a good man indeed.
***
Esther knew who the pretty red-haired woman was and wondered if this remove to Town was intended by the Almighty as some sort of wifely penance.
“Mrs. St. Just, is there a reason why you’re lurking at my back gate in the broad light of day?” My husband’s back gate, in point of fact.
Upon closer inspection, Percival’s former mistress was thin, she wore no gloves, and her hair bore not a hint of powder or styling. She wore it in a simple knot, like a serving woman might. Esther hadn’t been able to put any condescension into the question—Percival recalled this lady fondly, drat her.
Drat him.
“All I seek is a word with you, my lady.”
Here, where any neighbor, Percival, or the children might happen along? Not likely. “Come with me.”
Esther’s footman looked uncertain, while Mrs. St. Just looked… frightened. She glanced toward the stables, as if she’d steal a horse and ride away rather than enter the ducal household.
“I must tell my son where I’ve gone. He’s just a boy, a little boy, and he worries.”
What Esther needed, desperately, was to hate this woman who’d had intimate knowledge of her husband, to loathe her and all her kind, and yet, Mrs. St. Just worried for her son and apparently had no one with whom she could leave the child safely.
“Bring him along.”
Relief flashed in the woman’s eyes. She scurried across the alley and reemerged from the mews, towing a dark-haired boy.
“Devlin, make your bow.”
The lad gave Esther a good day and a far more decorous bow than Bart usually managed.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master St. Just.”
He was thin, and his green eyes were too serious for a boy his age. Esther was not at all pleased to make his acquaintance, wondering with more than a little irritation which swaggering young lordling had turned his back on this blameless child.
The next thought that tried to crowd into Esther’s mind she sent fleeing like a bat up the chimney.
Esther took her guests—what else was she to call them?—in through the big, warm kitchen. Mrs. St. Just looked uncomfortable, while the boy was wide-eyed with curiosity.
&nb
sp; “Perhaps your son would like some chocolate while we visit, Mrs. St. Just?”
If the help recognized the woman’s name, they were too well-bred to give any sign. The scullery maid remained bent over her pots, the boot boy didn’t look up from his work at the hearth, and the undercook kept up a steady rhythm chop, chop, chopping a pungent onion.
“Devlin?” Mrs. St. Just knelt to her son’s eye level. “You be good, mind? Don’t spill, and be quiet. I won’t be long.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Esther did not tarry to study the curve of the boy’s chin or the swoop of his eyebrows. He was a hungry boy, and any mother knew exactly what to do with a hungry boy. She caught the undercook’s eye and made sure the lad would be stuffed like a goose before he left.
The next issue was where to serve tea to her husband’s former mistress—for Esther would offer the woman sustenance as well. That was simple Christian charity.
Esther addressed the undercook, who’d gotten out bread and butter and was reaching for a hanging ham. “I’m feeling a bit peckish, so please bring the tray to Mrs. Slade’s parlor.”
The choice was practical: the housekeeper’s parlor would be warm and would spare Mrs. St. Just a tour past the upstairs servants. It would also mean mother and son were not separated by more than a closed door.
When that door had been latched, Esther turned, crossed her arms, and regarded Mrs. St. Just where she stood, red hands extended toward the fire.
For her sons, Esther would cheerfully kill. She’d walk naked through the streets, denounce her king, sing blasphemous songs in Westminster Abbey, and dance with the devil.
What Kathleen St. Just had done for her child was arguably harder than all of that put together. Esther took a place next to the woman facing the fire, their cloaks touching.
It occurred to her that they were both frightened. This realization neither comforted nor amused. Esther grabbed her courage with both hands, sent up a prayer for wisdom, and made her curtsy before the devil.
“Two questions, Mrs. St. Just. First, does his lordship know that boy is his son, and second, how much do you need?”
***
Kathleen St. Just’s household had shown signs of wear and want. In Cecily O’Donnell’s, the floors gleamed with polish, the rugs were beaten clean, and a liveried and bewigged porter still manned the door.
And yet, as Percival followed the woman into a warm, elegant little parlor, his footsteps echoed, suggesting every other room in the place was empty of furniture. Fortunately, this parlor held no memories of intimacy, for Cecily entertained only above stairs on an enormous carved bed sporting a troop of misbehaving Cupids.
“Shall I ring for tea?” she asked as she closed the door behind him.
“You shall state your business. One is expected to attend the morning’s levee.”
Her lips curved up in merriment. “How it gratifies me to know you’d rather spend this time with me than with our dear sovereign.”
She went to the door and rang for tea—of course. When the door was again closed and he was assured of privacy, Percival speared his hostess with a look that had quelled riots among recruits culled from the lowest ginhouses.
“State your business, woman, or you will be drinking your tea in solitude.”
To emphasize his point, he moved toward the door. She stopped him with a hand clamped around his wrist. “You will regret your haste, my lord.”
There was desperation in her grip… which could work to his favor. Percival aimed his glower at her fingers—her ringless fingers—and she eased away.
His next glower was at the clock on her mantel. “You have five minutes.”
A tap on the door interrupted whatever venom she might have spewed next. “Come in.”
A maidservant entered, accompanied by a little girl with red hair and a stubborn chin. He’d seen the child before somewhere, but couldn’t place her for the unease coursing through him.
The girl was not attired in a short dress as befit one of her tender years, nor was her striking hair tamed into a pair of tidy braids. She was dressed in a miniature chemise gown of gold with a burgundy underskirt, her pale little shoulders puckered with gooseflesh. Her hair was pinned up on her head in a style appropriate to a woman twenty years her senior, and—Percival’s stomach lurched to behold this—the child’s lips were rouged.
“Magdalene, make your courtesy to the gentleman.”
A perfectly—ghoulishly—graceful curtsy followed, suggesting the girl had been thoroughly grilled on even so minute a display. “Good day, kind sir.”
Percival manufactured a smile, because the child’s voice had quavered. “Good day, miss.”
And Magdalene—a singularly unkind name for a courtesan’s daughter.
Cecily grabbed the girl by the chin and pointed toward the sideboard, across the room from the fire’s heat. “Be quiet. You”—she waved a hand at the nursemaid—“out.”
Was everyone in this household terrified of the woman?
“You have three minutes, Mrs. O’Donnell, and then I shall do all in my power to ensure our paths never cross again.” He meant those words, though his gaze was drawn back to the child, who stood stock-still, staring at the carpet in all her terrible finery.
“Three minutes, Percival? I say our paths have become joined for the rest of our days on earth. Whatever else I know to be true about you—and I have kept up, you may be assured of that—I doubt your vanity would allow your only daughter to be put to work in her mother’s trade, would it?”
While the child remained motionless and mute, Percival felt his world turn on its axis. A hollow ache opened up in the pit of his stomach, a sense of regret so intense as to crowd any other emotion from his body.
The child could be his.
His dear, tired, dutiful wife would not kill him—that would be too easy a penance for a young man’s folly—but she’d likely remove herself from his household, and not a soul would blame her. The rules of marital combat in Polite Society allowed a wife to discreetly distance herself from an errant husband once heirs were in place.
Percival picked up the child, who cuddled onto his shoulder with a sigh. She weighed too little for her height, which looked to exceed Bart’s only slightly. Percival brought his burden—his daughter?—to the door and found the nursemaid, as expected, shivering in the corridor. “You will take miss back to the nursery, keep her there for the duration of my interview with your mistress, remove the damned paint from her face, and dress her appropriately to her station—and warmly. Is that understood?”
The maid cast a glance past Percival to Cecily, who nodded.
“Understood, my lord.”
Without another word, the child was taken from the room. Percival remained in the doorway, watching as she was towed by the hand toward the stairs. On the bottom step, the girl turned and met Percival’s gaze, surprising the daylights out of him by sending him a slow, careful wink.
Despite the tumult and despair rocketing through him, he winked back, recalling in that moment where he’d seen her before: in the park, peering out of a coach window. She’d struck him as a lonely little princess being dragged about on some adult’s errand, an accurate if understated assessment.
With a pointed glance at the clock, Percival turned and faced the woman who had in the last moments become the enemy of all he held dear. “What do you want?”
Her smile was the embodiment of evil, but she at least seemed to know enough not to approach him. “What I want is simple, my lord. I want you. Unless you can live with the fate of any girl born to Magdalene’s circumstances and live with the knowledge that all and sundry will become aware of her patrimony, then I suggest you accede to my wishes.”
He didn’t believe for one minute she meant he’d have to accommodate her in bed. She’d have to be daft to think him capable of such a thing. She wa
nted his escort, his protection, his wealth. Cecily O’Donnell was nothing if not shrewd.
She would understand shrewdness in another.
“Hear me, woman: You will ensure no harm comes to that child, lest the repercussions redound to your eternal detriment. You will produce baptismal records, a midwife’s sworn statement, and an affidavit from the man of the cloth who presided at the child’s christening before I even entertain the notion that girl might be my get. And you may be assured, should misfortune befall Miss Magdalene, I am threatening your very life, just as you are threatening my welfare. Make no mistake about that.”
She blinked, the only sign of intimidation he was likely to see from her.
“My arrangement with you was exclusive, my lord.”
Percival moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the latch. “Your arrangement with me was brief and long ago. Our encounters were meaningless and few, and between them, I did not trouble myself with what you got up to or with whom. You did not quibble over the compensation made to you at the time, and you know well the risks of your profession. I will see proof the child could be mine and then decide what’s to be done about her.”
A final glance at the clock—five minutes on the nose—and Percival walked out, feeling like a man given a reprieve from a date with the gallows. And yet, as he retrieved his stallion from the mews and turned the beast for home—there would be no attending any levees today—his mind circled around one question:
What would this cost him?
There would be a cost in coin, of course, and in convenience, because no child of his was going to grow up without her father’s protection. Those costs were entirely bearable and the responsibility of any man who took his pleasures outside of marriage.
The greater cost was going to come in the distance this would create between Percival and his wife. Sooner or later, Esther would become aware Percival was supporting Mrs. O’Donnell again. Polite Society, having all the kindness of a troop of rabid wolverines, would make sure Esther knew of the child as well.
As he turned for home, the true price of his interview with Cecily O’Donnell settled into Percival’s awareness next to the grief he felt at his father’s senescence and at his brother’s decline: the only way Percival could protect his wife from all the sorrows looming as a result of the morning’s revelations was by sending her away and keeping her far from the reach of gossip.
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