by Darcy Burke
“You ought to rid yourself of that child, is what you should do.” Her father’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Turn him over to Lord Constantine before he becomes some dirty pickpocket.”
The edges of her vision turned black. Her stomach heaved and she cradled her abdomen. Oh, God. No, she would not retch on her mother’s low table. But how could they be so cruel? Did they not trust her at all to raise her own child? “No,” she whispered, out loud this time.
“If not him,” Wyndham intoned, “then Captain Finn will do just as well. He can afford to apprentice him out. Give him a trade to fall back on, so he doesn’t end up addicted to gin and thievery.”
She jerked her head up. “Finn?” Her father did know.
Her mother arched a thin eyebrow. Her sharp chin jutted forward and she looked down her long nose in disgust. “If we must entertain one more of your dirty conquests, Elizabeth…”
Elizabeth went cold as mortification set in. No wonder they were angry. She’d inadvertently sent her scandal straight to their doorstep. And yet, she wished with all her heart that her mother would put aside her offense and ask Elizabeth if she needed help. Comfort. For this anguish only existed because she’d never felt her mother’s warmth in the first place, and had set off to find someone, anyone, to hold her.
Wyndham shook his meaty finger in the air. “I don’t pretend to know the facts, girl, but one thing is clear to me. Finn is looking for a fight. Your mother and I won’t stand for it. Our family name has been dragged through the mud enough, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ll give you one month. That’s long enough for you to return to London and place the boy with his father. I don’t care which man that is, so long as you’re sure he’s the right one. I want the gossipmongers silenced, do you hear?”
She could only consider him mutely. Her whole world, her son, hung over the edge of a precipice. How dare Nicholas come here? How dare he?
Wyndham’s thick brows drew together. “If you don’t end this farce in one month, I will choose for you. Lady Montborne may have tugged at your mother’s heartstrings, but I smell a rat. When it’s my word and the captain’s against yours and that feckless Alexander boy’s, whose do you think the courts are going to believe?”
She knew one thing for certain. It would never, ever be hers. Her father had the influence to make good on his threat with a snap of his fingers. In one month, he would snatch away her baby…if he could find her.
***
She didn’t wait for daybreak. An hour before the sun rose, she thrust her precious son, his nurse and the balance of her entourage into the two carriages and gave the order to pull away.
Now she could run. The last string tying her to England had truly been severed. Her parents didn’t love her. Moreover, her own father had just become a threat greater than Nicholas himself.
Her carriages made haste for the port city of Ellesmere. From there, she might sail to Dublin, or north to Scotland. France was out of the question, as was the majority of the Continent due to the ravages of the recently ended war, but it hardly mattered where she landed next. She would never be safe in England, so long as her father was willing to set the law on her.
Maybe Ireland wasn’t far enough. Could she be extradited? How was she to know?
Mrs. Dalton rode rear-facing. Her wide brown eyes shone in the dark. In that direction churned another question: would the nursemaid come, too? What about the rest of her staff? None of them had intended to defect when she’d told them to pack for Shropshire. What if they refused to follow? What would she do alone in Dublin, with a few pieces of jewelry and a small coin purse, while waiting for the post to travel back and forth between her solicitor and herself?
If she was declared a fugitive, would her accounts be frozen?
It was all so overwhelming. She’d have to see to severing her lease and organize the removal of her personal effects, all from another country. A new city where she’d have to set up her life all over again…for the third time within a single year.
She was too exhausted to close her eyes, and then there was Oliver to mind. This time, she hadn’t been strong enough to let him out of her sight. She’d directed Oliver, Mrs. Dalton and the large bag filled with Oliver’s necessities to her carriage, rather than the second. Elizabeth held his small body upright while he bounced on his baby legs. His soft fingers gripped hers and he gurgled happily. She had to be strong. She must do this. Otherwise, he would never know her. He would grow up thinking she hadn’t loved him. He might even believe she’d abandoned him—there was no telling what Nicholas would claim.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, she estimated there were a few hours yet before they arrived at Ellesmere. If the weather held, she might have six more hours of sunlight. Even so, the horses must be changed again before they continued on. She rapped on the carriage ceiling and fished out a coin from her velvet satchel. If they must stop, they should rest a moment, too. There were few taverns along the sparsely populated road and Mrs. Dalton looked half-starved.
They were seen into a private dining room while the rest of the servants were given ale and a meal in the front rooms. Elizabeth balanced Oliver on her hip, unwilling to have her son out of her arms for even a moment.
“That’s a handsome lad you have there,” the innkeeper’s wife said as she drew two of the four chairs away from the table. She waggled her fingers in Oliver’s smiling face as she passed. “Would you like some warm milk and bread for him?”
Elizabeth tried not to sound bitter when she answered, “Yes, thank you.” Her milk had dried up in the month she’d been separated from her son. Another offense she would never forgive Nicholas.
After the woman left, Mrs. Dalton removed her dusty bonnet and went to a washbasin set in the corner. “Are you sure we won’t stay the night, madam?” She sounded hopeful.
Elizabeth did feel conscience-stricken for dragging her staff posthaste across the countryside, but she shook her head. “My father thinks we’ve returned to London. I want to be far from here before he realizes that’s not true.” She had told her nurse they were headed for Ellesmere. She hadn’t yet explained that they weren’t coming back. “Will you stay with me?” she asked, even though it wasn’t a fair question.
Mrs. Dalton had lost her husband in the war. She was a pretty young thing with a shock of brown hair and a rosy complexion. She was too much a child herself for the sadness in her eyes. “Of course. I adore Oliver.”
Elizabeth sat at the table and positioned Oliver on her lap in the crook of her arm, preparing to feed him when the innkeeper’s wife returned. “Would you stay with me if I never came back to England?” She looked up to check the young woman’s reaction.
Mrs. Dalton’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you have a place in mind?”
What if she decided not to come after all? Elizabeth couldn’t risk a witness who knew her destination. “Not as yet,” she began, but she was interrupted by the arrival of the innkeeper and his wife toting mugs of fresh ale and plates of food.
The older woman set a loaf of bread onto the table. “The milk is on the tray, dearie. Now, is there anything else I can fetch?”
“No, thank you,” Elizabeth replied.
“In that case, your horses will be fresh when you’re ready.” With that, the couple backed out of the room.
The aroma of beef stew and crusty bread made Elizabeth’s mouth water. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the previous afternoon, as she’d fled the drawing room before they’d been called into dinner.
Her lips twitched with a touch of sad humor. So much for making amends.
She and Mrs. Dalton took turns dipping the bread into the milk and offering it to Oliver. When he finally sucked in his lower lip and refused to eat any more, Elizabeth proceeded to demolish the stew and the remainder of her half of the loaf. Mrs. Dalton did the same.
“Would you like to take a turn around the yard before we climb back into the carriage?” Elizabeth in
vited the nursemaid as she rose and shook out her skirts with one hand. The other held Oliver firmly on her hip.
Mrs. Dalton also stood and smoothed her traveling dress. “Yes, please. Let me fetch my bonnet—”
The door burst open.
Nicholas entered.
Elizabeth gasped. Mrs. Dalton squeaked.
The innkeeper’s wife barged into the room behind him with her red-faced husband at her heels. “Sir, I told you not to come in here—”
Nicholas took three steps into the room. His eyes met Elizabeth’s. Then they locked on Oliver. “I’m told a man can do whatever he wants, when it comes to fetching a runaway wife.”
Chapter Six
“I AM NOT YOUR WIFE!” Elizabeth darted her eyes toward her nursemaid for help, but Mrs. Dalton only gaped at Nicholas in horror.
“Elizabeth,” Nicholas said, taking three more strides toward her, “give me my son.”
“He’s not yours!” She half-turned from Nicholas, shielding Oliver with her body. “Leave us alone!”
“Er…” The innkeeper’s head swiveled from her to Nicholas and back. “The rules posted in the common area specifically disallow disputes of a domestic nature.”
“Which room is ours?” Nicholas barked over his shoulder. “We’ll take our dispute there.”
“She don’t have a room—” the innkeeper started, but his wife interrupted, “Number five.”
“No!” Elizabeth cried, but no one was listening. The innkeeper’s wife rifled through the keys at her belt and turned up a long hunk of metal that she handed to Nicholas. “Ten shillings.”
Nicholas’s angry eyes never left Elizabeth. Long fingers probed the pocket in his coat. He flipped a guinea at the woman. “Keep the change.”
“I’ll scream,” Elizabeth threatened. “I’m not his wife. I’m nothing to him.”
The innkeeper regarded her with pity. “You seem to know him, and the baby does look a bit like—”
Elizabeth’s fury broke in a single teardrop. It drew a scalding path down her cheek. “He can’t just charge in here and act like he owns us! He’s married! To someone else!”
The innkeeper’s wife’s eyes went wide. She elbowed her husband in his ribs. “Now it makes more sense.”
Yes, it made all the sense in the world, and she’d been stupid to ever think otherwise. She’d never had the possibility of holding all of his heart. He was married. He’d always been married.
“Look here,” the innkeeper said, shaking himself from a surprised stupor, “you need to keep your private business private. This is a proper establishment. I can’t have folks thinking it’s a—a bawdy house. They won’t come back.”
“I will not be quiet,” Elizabeth said through clenched teeth. “I will never go willingly with him.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t have a woman like you here alone,” the innkeeper said, to Nicholas’s evident amusement. “If you could at least pretend to be married…”
Nicholas twisted his lips into a tight smile. “No hardship at all. Come along, then, Beth. Bring the baby and let’s go upstairs. I’ll even get down on one knee and apologize, if that’s what you want.”
Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor. What did she do? If she refused to go with him, the innkeeper would toss her out and there would be only her servants to protect her from Nicholas. If she went upstairs with him, she’d be at his mercy anyway. He looked murderous, though she didn’t truly believe he would do her bodily harm.
This was a man she’d been in love with?
A rap on the door’s frame drew the attention of everyone in the room. Elizabeth looked, too, and her breath caught. Lord Constantine.
Nicholas’s weathered face darkened. “Get out.”
Con relaxed his forearm against the doorcase, clearly making no move to leave. “Why? I’ve only just arrived.”
“This doesn’t involve you.”
The innkeeper’s and his wife’s attention bobbed back and forth between the two men. They must have forgotten their desire to maintain the appearance of propriety.
Con’s overly dramatic wince implied that he couldn’t credit what he’d just heard. “I’d have thought a dispute involving a man’s mistress, his babe and her ex-paramour would naturally be of interest to him.”
The innkeeper’s wife nodded her head in agreement.
Elizabeth didn’t know if she should be relieved or suspicious of Lord Constantine’s bald-faced lie. Nevertheless, she was glad to have an ally against her ex-lover, who fairly growled, “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Alexander, but it’s a dangerous one. Do you know what manner of woman she is? Have you experienced the depths of her selfishness firsthand?”
Elizabeth recoiled at his verbal slap. Oliver let out a wail of disapproval, too.
“No.” Con’s only trace of disgust was directed at Nicholas. “We were only just getting on when you called her back to your bed. Is this how you seduced her last time? Chasing her, calling her names, embarrassing her in a public place for all and sundry to see? I think, then, it should not be so hard for me to woo her back.” He flashed a rakish grin.
“What a handsome young gentleman,” the innkeeper’s wife said to no one in particular. “A pretty way with words, too.”
“I just want my boy,” Nicholas said. While he’d never hit Elizabeth, his feelings about striking her alleged lover were less clear. He’d undoubtedly schooled whelps as cocky as the one braving his ire now. Nicholas was five and forty, much older and brawnier than Lord Constantine. Moreover, he was emotionally invested, which Lord Constantine couldn’t possibly be.
Con pulled an apologetic face. “I can see how much you want this baby to be yours, and I sympathize with you, I truly do. But she was with me nine months before he came along. I am very sorry about that, but it’s time you leave my son alone.” He indicated Oliver, who had started to drool.
Nicholas turned a furious red. He’d always been overbearing, but there had been kindness, too. When he hadn’t been breaking her heart with his dalliances with other lightskirts, he’d been generous, showering her with fine apartments, jewelry, and an enviable annuity, paid out of the massive settlement of his wife’s dowry. Elizabeth had provoked a perfectly ordinary man to this new fury, and for that she was sorry.
“I know you’re lying,” he said through gritted teeth.
Con shrugged. “It’s a matter of simple math, as I said to begin with. Were you with her?”
When Nicholas didn’t reply, Con asked it again. “Were you with her nine months—even ten months before she was, uh, confined?”
Nicholas continued to look at Con with stony disapproval. Elizabeth felt the last of her love for him disappear. What could he say? The truth? That there had been so much between them a year ago, but now he couldn’t even remember when last they’d taken a turn between the sheets?
“No answer?” Lord Constantine taunted. “Drat it all, but my mother explained this to me just the other day. I’m certain your participation was required.”
Elizabeth held her breath. If he remembered that last night together… Their passionate argument over his most recent dalliance, followed by even more passionate lovemaking, followed by the birth of their child... But he didn’t.
Nicholas gritted his teeth, then, with one last, longing look for Oliver, he loped toward the door Con obstructed.
Mrs. Dalton regarded Con with adoration. The innkeeper and his wife began to fidget, perhaps realizing the show was about to come to an end. Elizabeth’s relief almost made her dizzy and yet, she couldn’t get Nicholas’s stricken look out of her head. Was he here because Oliver was his property and he commanded what he owned, or because he cherished his son? Was his determination to have Oliver hardly different than his treatment of his wife, who must endure his philandering because he was her husband and therefore her master, or because he couldn’t bear to be separated from his only child?
Nicholas stopped just short of Lord Constantine blocking t
he exit. “She’s using you, Alexander. I’d pity you, if I were a man to waste time on fools.”
Con stepped to the side as if he meant to allow the other man to pass. At the last minute, his arm shot out to bar the doorway. It caught Nicholas hard across the chest. “Don’t follow my mistress again, Captain. Indolence has its benefits.” He looked sideways at the officer. “I have plenty of time to waste on fools.”
***
Con had known something wasn’t right when he’d left her townhouse several mornings ago. It was something in her eyes as she’d looked at him before she’d darted upstairs to see to her babe. Sadness, he’d thought then. Maybe a touch of anger. Since he’d just said some beastly things to her, he’d assumed he’d been the cause of it.
Now he suspected there was more going on. Finn had been following her. Constantine could only guess how long. He was an ancillary party to all of this, and really, he shouldn’t be here now. If he’d kept on past the door instead of stopping to assist, he might even have remained uninvolved. Hell, if he’d stayed home instead of riding out here, he wouldn’t even know Finn was threatening her. Then he’d be pleasantly clueless, and she’d be frightened out of her mind.
He was glad now that he’d gone back to her townhouse a day later to apologize for the unconscionable ass he’d been to her. The house had been all but vacant, which he hadn’t expected. With a few questions, he’d learned the small number of servants remaining stayed on with the lease, while she’d taken her personal servants to Shropshire. It was then that he’d become suspicious. That suspicion had turned embarrassingly selfish when he’d realized she’d taken his ability to make things right along with her, for if she wasn’t in London where he was, he couldn’t possibly perform due diligence as a father. Then what would he tell his family?
He’d decided on the return walk to Merritt House that he must fetch her back. If it was his fault she’d left, if he’d offended her somehow with his proposal, he had to make things right. And if it wasn’t, well, he couldn’t have her stealing away in the middle of the night, or whenever it was she’d left, without leaving him a forwarding direction. He had a duty to her son.
